


Ghost

by Yobotica



Category: Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Deny Desmond's Death 2k19, Desmond Miles Lives, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:13:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 92,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yobotica/pseuds/Yobotica
Summary: Set after Assassin's Creed III, Desmond lives.For a given value of living, at least. What is a man but the sum of his memories?
Relationships: Shaun Hastings/Desmond Miles
Comments: 232
Kudos: 316





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the monster fic I've been writing for like two years. It's complete, and will get weekly chapter updates. Enjoy~

By his best estimation, it took Desmond days to realize he wasn't actually dead. In his defense, he wasn't even sure he could claim to be alive, either, given that he certainly didn't have a body anymore. But he definitely wasn't _dead_ , since he could still think thoughts and feel feelings, and experience and remember new things. The first two were easy to figure out, but the last two took some time, mostly because of the 'not having a body' part of his new existence.

Once he realized all this, Desmond tried to explore where he was, along with _what_ he was. That took even longer, though he had no way of knowing exactly how long. The lack of physical senses was a large obstacle, but he eventually discovered that he did have the capability to sense his environment. He explored, slowly, learning how to 'see' and 'move' in ways that made sense to him even if he couldn't explain the hows of it. He could sense energy moving around him, and he could sort of follow it, to some extent, and learned some pathways were easier than others to follow. Whatever this afterlife this was, it sucked.

Then he found new inputs, and was able to identify one of them as cameras since he could get images from them. Microphones took longer, since it turns out there was really very little for them to pick up. Once he could see, he realized he was in the Temple where he thought he'd died. He must have taken Juno's place in the temple, somehow, and realized that either Minerva or Juno were wrong, or they both were, or one or both of them had lied. In the end, though, he was still trapped here, with no way to leave.

At least he could see and hear again, even if only in the confines of the temple; he could only experience the input of the equipment that had already been placed there. But there was no one there, nothing to see. No sign of his father or Shaun or Rebecca; no sign of Juno, no sign of his dead body, nothing but some rubble and a lot of dust. No sounds except the odd movement of air through the caves or a rock finally falling into the echoing abyss. He could see that a lot of things had changed, though; while some rooms appeared untouched, the main hallway had been trashed. The stone walkways had gouges that had to come from the use of heavy equipment with no care for preservation of the site. The altar itself was untouched, but within view of a couple of the cameras, he could see a few of the panels he'd put the "batteries" into were damaged, though the batteries themselves were still in place. He never saw a single person on the cameras and based on the hush and the dust, thought that it had been a long time since anyone had been here at all. He couldn't tell if the door he'd opened with the apple was still open; the cameras couldn't even see the entrance to the temple, much less outside.

He stopped actively watching after a while, spending more time exploring other things instead, like what exactly was the nature of whatever it was that he now lived in. There were other things taking up space alongside him, and in exploring them, he picked up what had to be the Isu language, and he learned that he was in some kind of archive.

It was a trove of data, containing all sorts of information. Much of it was useless to him: data regarding the failed plans of the Isu to save the planet, or at least save themselves; census data with names and dates and records of their history and the war. It was terribly boring, but if Desmond could have, he would have smiled as he pored through it. Shaun would have loved this shit.

Some of it, though, was useful - or, it would have been, to people outside of the archive, who he had no way to contact. Information on other sites that might actually be important, though a lot of it he couldn't really understand yet. Information on other artifacts, and their effects. Again, Shaun would be better with this information, better at putting it together and making it mean something. Still, he 'bookmarked' what he felt was the most relevant stuff for reviewing later. It wasn't like he had anything else to do, and judging by Juno's stint in this space, there was a lot of 'later' for him now.

He wasn't sure if his 'survival' was part of some plan (though whether Juno's or Minerva's, he couldn't possibly figure out), or if something had gone wrong. Their explanations had been hurried, so maybe there just hadn't been enough time. Minerva had confirmed that he would be dead, he remembered that, but... He wasn't. He just wasn't alive anymore, either.

He didn't know what happened to his body, only that it was gone. He knew he wasn't in it, so maybe Juno was? How else could she do what it was she wanted? Desmond didn't have any answers, but the worst was that even if he did, it wouldn't matter; he couldn't see any way out of the temple, not like this. He tried every now and again, testing the boundaries of his new world, but they remained the same. Even if he knew in exact detail what Juno intended to do and how she'd do it, there was no way to let anyone else know.

So he read and explored, and sometimes, he rested. It wasn't quite sleep, but it wasn't quite consciousness, either. There were no dreams, though. When he slept, there was only gray.

~

When the rumble of equipment reached one of the microphones, Desmond started paying more attention to them. He was better now, at not having a body. He'd learned how to spread himself out, how to pay attention to multiple things at once. It came easy now - he never really had to 'tune in' to the speakers or cameras any more, didn't need to focus on only one set of inputs any longer.

He just didn't know who was coming, or why. Well, he could make an educated guess at _why_ , just not why _now_. It had been years since he'd 'died', as far as he could tell, and the temple had remained undisturbed that whole time.

So he watched and waited (and read and rested), because that was all he could do. The workers, when they finally appeared, paid little attention to the altar or the consoles, but they paid attention to the rubble, to the gouges. They brought in cots and lights and generators, and the temple was full of noise like it hadn't been since he'd awoken in this place after his death. For the first time, Desmond actually cut the input from some of the equipment, mostly because he considered it unpleasant, even if the level of the noise no longer actually hurt him.

They talked, but they never said anything that he would find useful, nothing to indicate who they were with, why they were here. Only things about the job, like where to place what support or what area to clear next, or how best to even out the dangerously unstable walkway. Or things so personal they were useless to Desmond; how was the wife, are you still good to work today, did the boss ride you on the timeline again. He gleaned that they were trying to work stealthy, to avoid drawing attention to their presence here, but that meant little.

Desmond wasn't an idiot; there were only two groups that would have any interest in a site like this, much less knowledge of how to get here, and what areas they had the most interest in. These workers were either aligned with the Assassins or the Templars, and they weren't saying who. He was leaning Assassins, if only because the Templars had the Abstergo company as a front, and had no problems putting their logo on everything they touched (especially their people and their equipment). These guys wore no logos, and their equipment had no marks at all.

But he wasn't going to reveal himself until he was certain. Not that he was sure how to do that. He hadn't bothered to figure out the holograms or the speakers yet, though he was pretty sure he knew where and what they were - and even if he could activate them, he wasn't sure he'd manage to actually replicate himself either in image or voice. He wanted to practice or something, but there actually wasn't anywhere he could do that without drawing attention, now that there were workers everywhere. Even the parts of the temple that were cut off would echo and the only way to test anything included the possibility of discovery, so he didn't bother.

The workers made no move to interface with any of the Isu equipment, though, didn't let their hands linger on any of the shiny, lit surfaces, even if their eyes did. He respected them for that. Desmond wasn't sure what all of the consoles were for, even after all this time, so at least they weren't going to activate something or tear the whole place down again.

After weeks of work, though, they all up and left. They didn't take everything, though. They left lights and generators, and the plates laid down for the walkways, and even their kitchen was still set up, the cots were still in place, though some had been cleared for some reason. Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out the exact date (the Isu kept time differently, and while the temple still kept time, he had no idea how it related to the calendars he knew - if he knew how long it had taken him after dying to realize he wasn’t really dead, he could probably math it out himself; since he didn't, however, he had no idea what the date was), so he wasn't sure if there was a holiday or something that pulled them all away.

What was more important was trying to figure out what they'd been after, instead. They'd opened up a few new rooms he hadn't seen when he'd been alive, and not all of them had cameras inside them so he wasn't sure what they held. He could only see a little bit into one of them from a camera in the main hall - clearly whoever put the camera system in place didn't need to see everywhere in the temple; he had quite a few blind spots, and it drove him crazy. There was a console of some kind inside, but anything beyond it was obscured by the doorway.

He was so distracted with this little project that he forgot his desire to practice projecting either his voice or his image somehow. He didn't even remember until he heard people approaching again, and he immediately regretted his inaction when he realized who they were, because he'd recognize those voices anywhere.

It was definitely the Assassins who had cleared the temple, because the two voices belonged to one Shaun Hastings and one Rebecca Crane.


	2. Chapter 2

Shaun sighed when he finally cut the ignition on the van, though he made no move to leave the vehicle. They'd just pulled up to the cave that served as the entrance to the grand temple, and while the rain was a steady rumble against the vehicle, it wasn't the rain that made him hesitate.

Rebecca touched his shoulder. "We don't have to do this, you know," she murmured. "We can still go back; they can send another team."

Shaun shook his head, shrugged off her hand. "Yes we do," he said, sharper than he meant to. "I won't let another team handle this; I, it will be fine." The temple was only one of the last places he wanted to be in the world, but hell, if anyone was going to unlock its secrets, it was going to be him!

Rebecca only smiled at him before she opened her door and headed around to open the back of the van. There were only a few supplies they'd need to bring in to get started. Everything else could wait until tomorrow when the rain should have let up.

He was soaked immediately when he finally slid out of the driver's seat, but Rebecca was already there with both her duffle and his in hand. She held his out to him, and he slid it onto his shoulder quickly. She flashed a grin at him and turned towards the cave entrance. "Come on, Shaun, let's go see what Abstergo's left us!"

"What, like they just left this place behind without any kind of booby-traps? Come on, Rebecca, they'd be idiots not to! Imagine if any Tom, Dick or Harry wandered in, what would they do?"

"Okay, first of all, Mister Paranoid, the site was undisturbed for what, thousands of years?" she asked.

"Well, not _entirely_ undisturbed; there was all that graffiti..."

"Yeah, but no one got in. It's not like many people are actually coming out here, anyway. And second, Abstergo did actually collapse the entrance," she pointed out, correctly, but he certainly wasn't going to acknowledge it. While the collapse hadn't actually damaged the entrance to the temple, it had damaged the cave that led to it, more than enough to deter even the most intrepid spelunker. The Assassins had only just recently excavated a workable, safe entrance, as soon as they'd determined Abstergo really had abandoned the site.

"That still doesn't mean they didn't leave something behind inside," he grumbled, and Rebecca laughed. The new entrance was a lot smaller than the old, and he could see the evidence of the work crews still fresh in the ground - though at this rate, rain would take care of that soon enough. As soon as they ducked into the mouth of the cave, he flicked on the clip-on light attached to his belt and they made their way inwards. It wasn't too long before they reached a familiar hallway and started descending.

"It was swept already, you know that. No bugs, no cameras, nothing. I mean, Abstergo broke a lot of shit, apparently, trying to get stuff out or whatever, but hey. They didn't manage to get much; you've seen the pictures."

Shaun smirked. "Couldn't even get the batteries out," he confirmed, which amused him to no end. Not that the Assassins knew of any other sites that used them, though he was fairly certain Abstergo didn't know of any either. _Yet_ , at least. Like everything, it was only a matter of time.

They were quiet for a little bit as they descended. The area had been cleared somewhat, but footing was still pretty shaky at parts - the flooring in a lot of the approach had been cracked and broken when they'd first entered, and Abstergo's demolition attempts hadn't exactly improved them. But the quiet only let him dwell on the last time they were here, and this was precisely what Shaun was trying to avoid. He already thought about it too much.

Instead, he tried to focus on the now. He was wet, he was cold and getting colder, and he had the promise of new and valuable information if they could just work out an interface. And it couldn't be anyone else - not only was Rebecca a master of technology and coding, and he was aces at programming and figuring out patterns, but it was his report that even made this mission possible! He'd been the one to puzzle out the fact that the temple was not only bigger than it had seemed (and it had seemed plenty big), but that it was a more important site than either Juno or Minerva had implied. There was a store of sorts here, possibly a library or something. Perhaps Abstergo had known about it - they had attempted to remove a lot of the consoles - but Shaun knew for a fact that they hadn't been successful. Even if they had, whatever they had found would probably have been destroyed when he'd caused their server meltdown. He only wished that little trick had set them back even more.

He smirked to himself, but it fell off his face when they entered the temple proper. The lights were configured differently, but... at first glance, it didn't look any different. He swallowed, and felt his heart trip over itself for a moment before it resumed beating, if a bit fast. Just there was where the Animus had been. And there, where William often paced, trying not to glance over at the prone body of his son too often. And there were his and Rebecca's stations, over there was where Desmond would practice freerunning when he needed to get his blood moving again. And just down that walkway was the altar, where Desmond had...

But a second glance, after he blinked the memories away, betrayed all the changes. There were large metal plates on the ground now, forming walkways and larger flat areas, to cover for where the ground had been too damaged by either the temple's activation or Abstergo's actions. As he'd confirmed, there was damage to some of the terminals, where Abstergo had tried and failed to remove the batteries that had been set there by Desmond. The lights were in different areas, and there was damage to the ledge the Animus had been set - it wouldn't fit a grown person anymore. The giant glowing wall was gone, and the pedestal and the altar were no longer lit - the altar was barely visible, as that part of the temple had no lights set up at all, and whatever lights the temple had in there were no longer on. He was fine with that, personally, there was really no reason to ever look over there, anyways.

Shaun looked away, swallowed, and then physically turned away because it was just that hard to face. They'd just _left_ him there, left him for Abstergo to pick up and pick apart, like nothing more than a science experiment. It wasn't like they hadn't wanted to go back, like they hadn't wanted to go back _immediately_ \- but Abstergo had tracked them down, had already been on their way, and the three of them had no backup, and no way to get any. They'd had to leave, or their lives would have been just as forfeit as Desmond's had been.

Rebecca pulled him into a hug. He hadn't even seen her there, actually, just in front of him, and realised it was because he'd closed his eyes. He held her tightly for a moment, just a moment, before he took a deep breath, and pulled away. "I'm fine," he said, and even though his tone didn’t match the words, Rebecca didn’t call him on it. "I'm fine. Let's do this."

The room they were after was a recently unearthed room to the right, under the area Desmond had frequently worked out. When he'd been alive.

He shook his head again, and squared his shoulders. "This way," he said, much more firmly, and strode off towards the room he was almost certain was the server room for the temple. _A 'Vault', honestly,_ he thought to himself, rolling his eyes. He should have found it the first time they were here. Not that it would have helped, but... maybe it could have. It's not like they'd ever find out now.

The room itself was almost underwhelming; on both the floor and ceiling, there were rows of gleaming black objects - the kind that were seen all over the temple, with glowing lines of light forming patterns on the shiny surfaces of the squat cubes. There was a constant, low hum of energy, and a few consoles, but the room itself wasn't as big as he'd thought. Certainly not big enough to bunk in here. There was supposedly an area with living quarters on the opposite side of the main walkway, but that area hadn't been dug out - wasn't really worth it, since they could sleep almost anywhere on the cots that had been left behind for them, and the team that would be joining them shortly.

He ‘hmph’ed his displeasure again, trying to prompt a reaction from Rebecca, but she was already fiddling with one of the consoles, trying to figure out how to access the insides.

"Becca, we'll have time for that later, let's get our stations and kitchen set up," he said. "And figure out where we're sleeping," he added, mostly under his breath. They'd shared an alcove the last time they were here, but not only had that section not been cleared, he wanted to avoid as many reminders as he could.

"Oh, yeah, I'll show you the temp rooms," she said, and he blinked. She grinned. "You know, where the digging crews slept."

"Oh," he replied. "Right." The digging crews, which would be back once he and Rebecca determined just what the vault had to offer. If nothing, well, they wouldn't bother digging out the rest. But if Shaun was right...

"Don't worry, we don't have to sleep there at all, if you wanted to sleep in here," she pointed out. But Shaun could tell that even if the imported lights were turned off, the room would remain fairly well-lit, thanks to the cubes. Not to mention the hum; there was no way he’d successfully sleep in this room. Shaun really hoped this was the data storage he was hoping it was. If not, then who knew how much more excavation would be needed before their part of the mission could commence.

"Pass," he muttered, heading back into the main hallway. "Show me the rooms, then; we can get our areas set up, and presumably the work crews had a kitchen figured out..." he trailed off, glancing around - he could see, now that he was really looking, areas of interest marked out, cords and generators set conspicuously along the walkways. There would be a skeleton crew here for the next few weeks, mostly to act as guards and backup, but also to catalog the damages and exploring what they could, hoping to unearth other discoveries, discoveries that he and Rebecca weren't involved in.

"First thing," she agreed, even though he hadn't really been talking to her. She led him across the main hall and into a doorway that led to yet another hall, though smaller. The only clear room for sleeping was immediately on the left, with cots already set up, as well as two makeshift desks with hookups and cables already waiting. Shaun grinned and claimed the one furthest from the door.

The room across the small hallway was the kitchen, already wired up with two backup generators, a small fridge, microwave and two hotplates - and ten cases of bottled water stacked up alongside one wall. "Oh the places we'll go," Shaun sighed - but honestly, it was a step up from the last time they were here, so he really had no room to complain. Last time, they hadn't had a microwave at all, only a single, shitty hotplate to heat their food. Needless to say, mealtimes had been staggered slightly.

Rebecca elbowed him and rolled her eyes. "Yep, we're livin' in the lap of luxury!" she crowed, fishing out a bottle of water. She held it up and shook it questioningly, and he nodded, so she tossed it to him before getting herself another. "I mean, we've got a microwave and everything."

"Well, let's go get the rest of our supplies and get everything put up. We can start the real work tomorrow," he said, taking a swig of his water before bending to put it in the empty fridge. At least it was already cold inside."I want to get a heater set up next to my cot. I'm not freezing my arse off this time," he groused.

It wasn't yet winter, so it hopefully wouldn't get as cold at night, but who knew? He certainly wasn't taking any chances.

~

The next morning brought with it clear weather, and Rebecca bullied Shaun into unloading their van before breakfast. They'd grabbed the most sensitive stuff to keep with them before settling into bed the previous night, but there was still quite a bit to haul in. Most of it was for their computers, of course; backup laptops, a local wireless node, emergency network uplinks, kilometres of cable and multiple high capacity external hard drives that they were going to use to store whatever it was they found in the Vault. Basically, a bunch of heavy things Shaun wanted nothing to do with before he'd even had whatever pitiful excuse for breakfast awaited them.

Even with all his grumbling, however, it was all done in less than an hour and Rebecca allowed him first crack at both the coffee and the microwave. Less generous than it had seemed, at first, as he later found out she was up before him and had her own breakfast before she'd even woken him up. However, he only learned that after he'd inhaled his second bagel, so he decided magnanimously to forgive her.

Besides, and he would never tell her this, but she'd been right; once he'd eaten, they could get straight to it, since they'd already brought everything in. She'd already brought the toolbox into the Vault's server room, and by the time he'd set up a small workstation with two chairs and two laptops only networked with each other and the crate-turned-shelf of externals he'd also set up (with yet another backup generator, even!), she had a panel off of the console and was poking around just inside.

Shaun squatted down next to her, craning his neck to see around the small flashlight she was holding - as they'd expected, the technology wasn't at all like what humans had so far. He was a little surprised that some things seemed well, not recognisable, not really, but similar enough that even he had ideas about what to try. But Rebecca was better with hardware than he was, and that was her job for that reason. Besides, they'd need more access to the console’s insides, so that was most of the first day; gently tearing apart the console’s casing, exposing as much of the actual workings of the entire machine as they could, and over the next few days, finally getting to start the process of carefully testing the exposed boards for power and connections and noting their results.

It was as frustrating as it was fascinating. The Isu technology was leaps and bounds beyond their own, and they knew this. But just how far ahead they were was hard to calculate, and not just because their first attempt at gauging the power levels of the console's various parts ended with a fried instrument and singed skin.

The worst part wasn't the cramped quarters, or the setbacks or even the giant reminder of what this place was that hit him every time he relaxed his guard - it was that it got easier; as time went on, to deal with the hurt that the temple itself provoked. It wasn't like he'd really talked about it with anyone - hell, it wasn't like he even talked about it to _himself_ \- but the intensity of those feelings always shocked him. He hadn't even known Desmond that long, but... but losing him had felt like losing more than a friend. He couldn't even describe why or how, had never wanted to even try. And yet, it felt like a betrayal somehow that every day he breathed a little easier, he didn't have to avert his eyes as quickly from various parts of the temple. He knew that it was natural, and probably healthy, but it still felt like something he wasn't ready for.

That whole avoidance of thinking about his feelings was probably why it took him so long to notice the projection that had started appearing in various places around the Temple, the one that kind of looked like an Apple of Eden. He couldn't say how long it had been popping up, but at least he had a reason for why he might have missed it. He had no idea what Rebecca's excuse was.

~

"I've barely left this room, how was I supposed to see it?!" was Rebecca's excuse when Shaun finally managed to show her the hologram; it was fickle in its appearances, apparently, and was currently flickering in and out of existence on one of the upper platforms that had been one of Juno's favorite haunts when... when Desmond had managed to get up there, too, somehow - and the recollection only made Shaun flinch a little bit, though he managed to bite back the sigh the revelation brought forth.

"And you're sure the work crews never saw anything like this?" he pressed, and she rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Shaun, I'm sure. We _specifically_ asked them to look for that sort of thing!"

"It hasn't only been there - I saw it closer to us once, near the ramp to the black cube room," he replied, watching it blink out again. There was no pattern, as far as he could tell; it couldn't even seem to hold its shape all that long, flickered and 'glitched' even when it was being projected. "D'you think she's still here?" he asked, frowning.

"You know she's not," Rebecca replied darkly, and the thing was, he did. They knew she'd been active out in the world now. Only... What else could it be? _Who_ else?

"I know," he groused back at her. "Probably not Minerva either, given that she had her own projection, too, and this thing is...well, maybe it's an AI," he murmured, cocking his head to the side. "Think maybe it woke up thanks to us poking about its guts?"

Rebecca laughed. "I hope not," she said, and then did not immediately follow that with an advisory for caution going forward. He knew she wouldn't, but sometimes he liked to hold out hope that she'd surprise him and use sense for once.

"Maybe we shouldn't-"

"Nope," Rebecca cut him off, "We're gonna."

Shaun sighed. "Well, we should at least keep an eye on it. Get a few cameras set up 'round the temple, maybe the places Juno haunted the most," he suggested. "Could hook 'em up to a monitor in the server room," he added.

Rebecca nodded. "Sure," she chirped, "You need something to do anyways, since we can't both work on the console at the same time."

"Oi! I meant you!" Shaun protested hotly.

"It was your idea!" Rebecca sang at him, and Shaun grumbled to himself.

"You'll thank me later for it, too," he said, sniffing and angling his head in the haughtiest manner he knew. But she just let her grin get even bigger before turning back to the project of... whatever it was she was actually doing, something about power regulation, he thought. They both knew she was right - she was definitely more adept at the mechanical and electrical work, and Shaun was at least capable enough to string up cameras and run cables.

In the end, it was the work of an afternoon to get three cameras set up and feeding to one of the spare laptops, and when he finished, it was time for dinner. The Apple sort of followed him to each station as he set it up, though it didn't actually do anything other than flicker in and out of existence and float in a fixed position. It didn't even rotate or animate or anything; the Isu were apparently really boring programmers. He certainly hoped so, at least, since their goal was to interface with the Isu technology - and the less creative the Isu were at either digital offense or defense, the better.

~

The holographic Apple's behavior didn't change for two days - Shaun kept an eye on the monitors when he wasn't looking at one of the avatars directly. And when it _did_ change, it wasn't with any animations or even changing the height the damn thing seemed to be stuck at. No, it started trying to add sound.

Or, so Shaun assumed. It took him a little bit to connect the two, really, because the first time he actually heard something (a strange, chaotic burst of static) from the laptop with the camera feed, the Apple projection was gone by the time he looked up, if it had even been there. But he kept a closer eye on it since he was mostly doing busywork right now anyways, and a new pattern emerged.

Sometimes there would be sound without the Apple being present. Other times, when the Apple was present, it flickered out before any sound was produced, and reappeared shortly after. And while he was scrutinising it so closely, Shaun noted that there was only ever one Apple projection at a time. On the cameras at least. Who knew how many could exist all over the temple - they still didn't have a good estimate for its true size, after all. But he had a feeling there was only ever one.

Out of curiosity, he checked the recordings one morning, while Rebecca quietly built something she said would modulate the power output to something they could actually work with. For real this time, she'd said.

What he noticed, however, was that the Apple projection didn't appear at night, when they slept. Ever. Nor were there any sound bursts, either. It was strange, because he'd been somewhat of an insomniac while they lived under the countdown to annihilation, and Juno's projection had wandered the temple at all hours as far as he could see. She'd barely even spared him a glance, and he'd largely gotten used to her 'presence'; though occasionally he'd catch her watching him - sometimes guarded, sometimes glaring.

"Hey, Rebecca," he called, mostly to see if she was in a talking mood or if she'd gone into 'the zone', as she liked to call it.

"Yeah?" she answered, though she didn't look up.

"What if it's trying to communicate?" he asked, staring at the laptop that was currently displaying the live feed from the temple, just outside the doorway to the room they were in. The Apple was there, just ...there.

"What?" she asked, actually looking up this time, pulling her tools away from the strange, hexagonal box-thing she was building.

"The Apple, the AI, whatever it is," he said, nodding his head towards the image.

"Oh, that," she murmured, then 'waved' with one of her hands, still gripping her pliers. "If it is, it's terrible at it," she mused with a snort, and bent her head down to the thing. "But, hey, maybe we'll be better at it - I'm almost done with this!"

Shaun's brows raised. She sounded really certain this time. She always did, though, but this felt different, and he expected she'd be right about it this time. Part of him felt like he definitely shouldn't spend this much time feeling things, much less listening to them, but the other part recognised that he was right so often it would be foolish not to.

So he shut his work laptop (he wasn't really doing much, anyway), and moved over, watched her solder a few more things into place before she finally sat back.

"That should do it!" she crowed. "Just need to hook this baby up, and we're in!"

"Need I remind you, this is the fifth time you've said that?"

"Well, fifth time's the charm, then!" she replied, undeterred. He wouldn't ever say it, but that was one of his favourite things about her; it balanced out what others called his oppressive pessimism. He suspected she knew anyways, but he would confirm nothing.

"I'm going to stand over there," he said, gesturing to the corner of the room, though he didn't move more than two feet in that direction before he turned to watch. After failure number three, she'd rigged up a sturdy 'port' of sorts, where she could connect her gadgets without having to solder new connections every time they failed - which, honestly, had been a pain for him in particular, because she'd bitched every time she's had to do it so far.

But there were no sparks when she plugged it in, no immediate smell of burnt plastic and ozone. And there was no annoying, ominous buzz this time, either!

"Well that was underwhelming," he said, and she stuck her tongue out at him. "Let's go have lunch and see if you've burnt the place down by the time we come back."

~

The temple wasn't a charred ruin by the time they'd finished their lunch. Shaun made a show of making Rebecca enter the room first, and graciously allowed Rebecca's gloating smirk without remark.

She crouched down immediately and hovered her hand over the contraption, and hummed. "Not even a little bit warm!" she crowed, grinning up at him. She fished a regular USB cable from one of her pockets and plugged it into the box. "Let's see if we can manage a connection!"

Shaun couldn't help grinning, because even though he knew realistically they were still days away from any meaningful transfer of data, this _was_ a huge step! Still, he grabbed the most expendable laptop and shifted one of their small desks closer to where she was already waiting, beckoning with the cord in her hand. "Christ, woman, patience," he sniped, booting the laptop up and double-checking that it had no other network connections, and no valuable data on it whatsoever. Only the 'delving' program he’d devised, and a few diagnostic tools, as planned.

"I'm not a virtuous woman, Shaun, come on!"

"Alright, alright, just a moment," he said, and then took his hands off the laptop in case it, oh, exploded or something. "Now you may plug it in."

"Ha, ha," Rebecca sneered, and shoved the USB into the port without any finesse. His eyes were glued to the screen, just to see if the connection would do anything, but nothing happened. He and Rebecca let out a breath at the same time, and she caught his eye and laughed. He smirked up at her in response. "Shut up," she said, through a smile. "Let's see what we got!"

They spent two hours hunched over the same laptop before they made any progress actually detecting the goddamn connection at all, and even when they managed that, nothing they had could actually decipher anything on the other end.

"Yet," Shaun muttered, mostly to himself. "Ugh, this isn't going to work, we can't go on like this!"

"Drama queen," Rebecca laughed when she stood, but she groaned when she stretched. "Yeah. We're gonna have to grab another monitor and keyboard."

"Not like we don't have spares," he offered. "C'mon, I need to stretch my legs for a bit." he followed her example, back cracking a bit as he succumbed to the full body stretch. He started to move towards the door, but paused when his eye caught the monitor with the video feed. The Apple was nowhere to be seen. "Should we leave it connected?" he asked, frowning slightly.

"What?" Rebecca had to lean back into the doorway.

"The computer - should we leave it connected? What about the AI or whatever?" he asked, gesturing to the monitor.

"Oh, uh. Yeah, unplug it," she said, nodding decisively, but in the way that he knew meant she was mostly humoring him. He'd take it. They had backups, but, well, best to be prudent.

~

For all that Shaun grumbled that he wished connecting into an ancient, advanced system was more like it was shown in films, there was still an undeniable thrill about the work. Yes, it was bloody tedious like, 99% of the time, but that 1%... He was going to see things no human alive had ever seen!

Unfortunately, all he was seeing now was gibberish. This was mostly expected, however, given that they had no idea what the Isu even used as an alphabet, much less their actual writing system, and even if they _did_ know, they'd still have to program the language into their displays. It was a good way to lose a lot of hours, though. The first few days involved a lot of cautious looking around, just figuring out what they could see and making guesses at how it was organised.

They both had decided they'd take their own approaches and regroup at night to share what they'd discovered, but Rebecca's first days went much the same as his.

The fifth day, though, Shaun decided he'd actually poke around, see what he could interact with. He still couldn't interpret much, though, but he could see where one bit of data ended and another began. Around two hours in, though, his screen flashed, and different kinds of gibberish began scrolling across his screen. This was alarming enough, but then his speakers let out a harsh blast of static that just about made him piss his pants.

"Jesus Christ!" Rebecca swore, jumping up and rushing over to his desk to peer at his screen. Shaun just sat there, panting, trying to calm his racing heart. The sound ended as quickly as it began, and then returned in pulses, with no pattern he could determine. "What the hell?" Rebecca asked. She touched a few keys, but it was impossible to tell if that had changed any of the symbols rapidly scrolling and flashing across the screen.

Shaun laughed sharply, glanced up at her.

"Rebecca," he intoned, in the most dramatic voice he could muster while barely managing to keep his face straight, "I think we've found the AI."


	3. Chapter 3

Desmond was beyond excited as he watched the pair setting up in the temple. He couldn't wait to talk to them again! He quickly realized, however, that he had no real way to communicate with them yet. He couldn't make a hologram like Juno had, he couldn't even produce anything other than static when he tried to speak!

Over the next week, he worked on the only projection he could manage, some sort of placeholder that was basically one of the Apples, just floating in mid-air. He couldn't even make it move. It was just a static image, though he thought he managed to find all of the projectors that either Shaun or Rebecca could see. What surprised him is that it took Shaun - _Shaun!_ \- a couple of days to even notice it! Rebecca, well, that wasn't too shocking, but Shaun had completely missed the stupid floating Apple that was all but stalking them.

While the situation was mostly frustrating, there were a few silver linings; watching Shaun get paranoid and set up cameras to watch the Apples was kind of amusing. He still couldn't see inside the little room, but he could just pick up what was being said when their voices were raised a little above normal; whispers and mutters, he couldn't pick up at all.

He didn't even have to guess at what they were doing; they spoke freely in the Temple, even knowing there was something watching them. Desmond supposed it probably wouldn't matter to them even if they were being observed. If it was Abstergo, like one of Shaun's hypotheses, then they'd probably have a little warning before being able to leave, and the potential rewards were huge enough to take the risk. If it was some guardian A.I. for the Temple, like Shaun also hypothesized, then it would quickly figure out their plans when they finally managed to jack into the servers.

What did surprise him, though, was learning that Shaun and Rebecca were both now full-fledged field agents. He learned this information through snippets of their conversation, but at least he now knew why they were on their own, with no one to guard them or fight with them. A little bit of him wondered if they'd both always been field agents, and if their assignment to his team had been temporary, or if it was a new thing. His dad and Shaun both had updated him on the status of the Brotherhood before he'd died, and he knew the goal of the Animus training had always been to make himself a field agent... He wondered if even more Assassins had died, if things were desperate enough that even the 'brains' were sent into the field, or if that was how things always were, that there were no tacticians that couldn't also fight.

These were answers he could have, questions he could ask Shaun or Rebecca, if only he could communicate with them!

He tried practicing sometimes, trying to make speech from the speakers, or make the apple do anything other than just float motionless; he practiced in areas the others couldn’t see or hear, in parts of the temple the Assassins hadn’t bothered to clear. He was hindered by the fact that he spent most of his time trying to observe the two somehow - at first through his cameras and microphones, but later, he realized he could 'feel' Rebecca's tampering in a way that had been unrecognizable to him at first.

Oddly enough, it was her work that acted as a breakthrough for him - by focusing on 'where' she was working, he learned how to 'move' better throughout the systems, how to 'see' different pathways and interpret more data. Then he got distracted by finding all the things he'd learned before, collating them all to show the pair when they finally succeeded in networking with the Isu systems, with Desmond.

After all, he knew it was only a matter of time.

~

Desmond held it as basically fact that Shaun and Rebecca would achieve their goal of interfacing with the Isu server - he could 'feel' their progress in a very real way. It wasn't even about confidence, really; it was almost impossible that they'd fail. He'd seen no one in ages before the cleanup crew had come and installed lights and cots, and he was certain the Assassins weren't exactly advertising their presence here, so they had all the time in the world. And if they had time, then it was, by and large, a certainty.

It didn't even take long for them to succeed, actually, but he rushed to connect with their equipment, certain he'd finally have contact, only to overload her device, apparently. He didn't even realize that he would have that effect on a physical piece of equipment! It gave him a distraction, though, in that he could focus on how much of him moved, and 'feel' how it moved, as well. He became more aware of the space he took up, which is how he thought of it, even if it wasn't exactly accurate.

So he waited for them to try again, and waited some more until he was certain he wouldn't damage their equipment - only to find that their systems were, well, vastly inferior to the 'space' he'd been existing in. It was hard to describe, really, but it was smaller, and arranged differently. He poked about a bit, trying to learn about where he was and what he was 'seeing'. It took a lot less time than before, actually, and he realized he could utilize the built-in webcams of the laptop, the microphones and speakers to see the pair more easily. He was only 'in' one of the machines, and it turned out to have been Shaun's; he could see the man frowning in concentration at the screen. It was strange, in a way, because Shaun was right there, facing him, but he wasn't looking _at_ him, was he?

Desmond had to try! Surely he could manage something here - these were the machines of his people, built in his language! Surely he could do this!

Only, he couldn't, apparently. He ended up scaring the hell out of them both with another loud blast of noise, which was, admittedly, funny - and 'confirming' for Shaun that he was an A.I., which was not.

On the one hand, he could absolutely see and hear them now, better this way than through the Temple's cameras; but on the other, he still couldn't interact with them. It was incredibly frustrating.

He saw Rebecca reach for the keyboard, and realized he could feel that input - if only he could see the keys she was touching, he could put symbols to those 'feelings'. Thanks to the angle of the screen, he couldn't see the keyboard at all. He thought maybe he could make a reasonable guess, if he could recall how a keyboard looked off the top of his head, which... he could not.

And, of course, if he could ask them to re-orient the screen, he wouldn't actually need them to!

"Hmm, I can't tell if it's even allowing inputs right now," Rebecca murmured, glancing over at Shaun, who met her gaze. "Maybe we should unplug it..."

Desmond couldn't yet talk, he knew that, so instead he let out another burst of static at that suggestion, and the two jumped again, eyes darting back towards the laptop.

"I don't think it likes that idea," Shaun murmured, cocking his head at the screen. "That... That was too well timed for it to be a coincidence," he said, eyes darting to the webcam and narrowing. "If you can understand us, do it again. That noise," he ordered.

Desmond obliged, because of course one of these two would figure out a way to communicate.

Shaun grinned widely, a delighted expression that Desmond had rarely seen on him before, and for a moment, felt a strange burst of affection and attraction for the man that somehow felt alien to him now. He supposed it had to do with the fact that he no longer had a body. No pulse to quicken or breath to catch when Shaun did something unexpectedly hot. (Unexpected mostly because Desmond had never expected to find the things Shaun did regularly to be hot; things like grousing and grumbling, snarking, being all British and smug...)

"Do it twice," he ordered, and again, Desmond obliged.

Rebecca's grin grew to match Shaun's. "Awesome!" she cheered, raising a fist briefly in the air. "So what're we going to do, one beep for yes, two beeps for no?" she asked, and even though Desmond saw Shaun opening his mouth to answer, Desmond let out one 'beep'. Alright, it was another loud burst of static, but he couldn't do beeps yet, sue him.

Shaun glared. "Well, it'll work until we establish better communication, I suppose," he relented. "Are you going to kill us?" he asked, staring into the webcam.

Desmond answered with two harsh blasts of static. Of course he wasn't!!

"Of course you'd say that," Shaun muttered, and Desmond wanted to laugh so badly - he hadn't wanted to laugh at all for so long. He'd never even mourned his inability to do so until now, hadn't even realized he'd missed it until that moment! Shaun sighed. "I have so many questions, and almost none of them are yes/no," he said, closing his eyes briefly, then he straightened his shoulders, nodded decisively. "Well, we'd best get started then."

Desmond let out a single static burst.

~

Actually, it didn't take as long as Desmond would have thought to learn how to 'type', as it were. The yes/no system they'd worked out helped only marginally, though. Rather, it was simply observation, of a sort, though he did have to 'split' his attention between both of their computers. It wasn't all that difficult, because he wasn't really 'in' them in the first place. It gave him a feeling somewhat close to dizziness if he thought about it too closely, so he mostly chose not to examine that particular ability.

Still, once he realized he could truly initiate contact, he hesitated. He wanted to tell them who he was, desperately so, but he wanted to do so in a way that was, y'know, not traumatizing, though he honestly didn’t think such an option existed. And honestly, when the idea came to him, he knew it was stupid (both in principle and execution), but he also couldn't resist how terrible it was. Plus, wouldn't it help them realize the truth, that he wasn't some A.I.? 

He waited until Shaun was getting particularly frustrated at whatever it was he was trying to do - occasionally he asked questions of the 'A.I.' he thought Desmond was, and Desmond rarely knew the answers, which Shaun took to mean that it was simply being contrary and grumped at him for a bit. Then he opened a window (with no avatar, because he had only barely figured out windows and text, he wasn't even going to start with images) and a little prompt where he 'typed' out: **I SEe yOU are trYIng to INTerFace WiTH the isU DATabAsE WOUld yOU liKe HELp WiTH THaT**

Well, okay, he hadn't actually 'mastered' text yet. It was difficult! He kind of had to give Juno a break now, for her terribly constructed e-mails, because it was actually really difficult from this end!

Shaun stared at the prompt, which blinked at him, then moved his eyes to the webcam, which didn't.

"Rebecca," he said slowly, moving his face towards her, but keeping his eyes on the webcam. "Come over here, would you?" His voice was modulated oddly, like someone not trying to alarm someone but also desperately needing help. "I think I've gone crazy, I just need you to take a look at something."

"Sure thing!" Rebecca chirped, and she stood up out of Desmond's view (because of course he was going to pull this shit on Shaun first, of _course_ he was) and moved to peer over Shaun's shoulder.

It took her only a few moments before she frowned and glanced at him. "What the hell?" she asked, and Shaun shrugged.

"I don't know! It only just popped up. You don't suppose the A.I. found Clippy, do you?" he asked, and Rebecca rolled her eyes at him, hit him on the shoulder.

"And how would that happen, huh? These machines haven't ever run a single Windows program!"

"I do know that, but then how do you explain this?"

"Well, why don't you ask it?"

Desmond didn't wait for the actual question before he slowly shared his next message.

**IM SOrrY. i thOUghT iT wOULd BE fUNNy**

That got their attention, but it made both of them frown even more.

"So you really can hear us, then," Shaun said, not exactly a question.

**I CAN.**

"Bloody hell," Shaun swore, eyes wide. "It really IS an A.I.!"

**IM NOT AN A. I.**

Desmond figured out that all caps were easier for him to input, even if punctuation wasn't so straightforward, so he figured that would be better, syntax-wise. He figured it probably wouldn't help ease the blow of his reveal, though.

**REBECCA YOU MIGHT WANT TO SIT DOWN FOR THIS.**

"Holy shit, it knows my name!" Rebecca whispered, then did nothing to follow the suggestion at all. She just stood there, staring at the screen.

**IM DESMOND.**

He figured it best to just put it right out, but he wasn't expecting the reaction he got. Both of them kind of recoiled, Shaun violently enough that his chair clattered backwards. He looked pale, and Rebecca finally tore her eyes away from the screen to look at him, concerned. "What the fuck," Shaun murmured, but he was shaking his head and stepping back slowly. He turned to look at Rebecca, then shook his head a final time and stormed out of the room.

Rebecca watched him go for a moment, then glanced back at the laptop and shook her head once before she turned to follow.

Desmond saw them on the Temple's cameras, Shaun heading to their bunk room and Rebecca following him, but he didn't bother with his avatar or anything like that. He'd expected surprise, and maybe a little skepticism, but not whatever that was. He'd left them get through it in private, wait for when they were ready to talk to him.

It wasn't really like he could do anything else.


	4. Chapter 4

"Shaun!" Rebecca's voice carried out to him, almost to their bedroom now. "Shaun, wait!"

Shaun didn't listen, though - it wasn't like she wouldn't catch up in ten seconds anyways; it wasn't like he had anywhere else to go anyways, and wasn't that a kick in the balls, because apparently _Desmond had been here the whole time in exactly that situation!_

He sat down heavily on his cot, hands already moving to rub at his eyes, pushing his glasses up his forehead in a way that usually drove him bonkers. But he had to just.. he needed a moment, just to really parse what the thing - no, Desmond? - had said.

He took a deep, shaky breath, and then another. Rebecca should have caught up by now, so he lowered his hands and opened his eyes and saw her in the doorway, hesitant.

"Becca," He said, low, and opened his mouth to say more, but nothing came out. How could he be so undone by two words?

"Oh, Shaun," she murmured, and normally he'd hate it, that pitying tone she took as she moved closer, and sat next to him on the cot. But right now, it was the only thing that he could hold onto that at least made sense. He let her put her arm around him, and he pulled his glasses off so he could at least turn into the gesture without pain.

"It can't be true," he said quietly. "We... We can't have left him here for years."

"It could be," she countered, blunt, but gentle. "We didn't know, Shaun. They told us he'd die, they might not have even known it was possible." They were true, the things she was saying, but that didn't change the fact that they had...

Shaun wouldn't cry in front of her, though, he wouldn't, but he was damn close. He forced himself to keep taking in breaths until they were no longer shaky, and he felt like he had a better grasp of his stupid emotions. "They could have lied," he pointed out. "We had no reason to believe them, really. Why didn't we come back sooner?"

Rebecca sighed, and her hand on his back started moving in circular motions, an attempt at soothing him that he resented for working a little bit. She didn't answer the question he asked, because they both already knew the answer, and the answer was that it had been impossible for them to return until now, no matter their intentions. "Well, it still might not be him," she replied, instead. "It might be something or someone else. We'll have to test ...it."

Shaun snorted. "I suppose," he said softly, finally managing to pull himself away. "But not today. Tomorrow. I... god I wish we had something to drink!"

"Well, I might have something," Rebecca said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "but you can't nag me on my packing speed or abilities ever again."

Shaun didn't even hesitate. "Deal," he replied. They both knew he'd never keep his end of the bargain anyway.

~

Despite his very real desire to, Shaun did not get _drunk_. He didn't even achieve numb, which would have been his second goal. He didn't quite hit relaxed, but he got at least somewhat close when he simply hit exhausted and tipsy. Close enough.

"D'you think he's watching us right now?" he asked, peering suspiciously at the corners of their room. He didn't see any cameras, but he hadn't before, either, when he'd realized Juno was there, just watching them all the time somehow.

"You know I can't know that," Rebecca said, far too patient and sober. She'd already cut him off ten minutes ago, had stashed her bottle away for the night, she said. "We don't even know if the projection is where the cameras are," she added, nodding to the doorway. From their room, Shaun could only see one of the avatar's 'perches', and only if he leaned a bit - it had been empty every time he'd checked.

"He'd have been watching the whole time," he continued. "No way to talk to us until we figured it out. Watched Abstergo rip it apart. He might have even seen them... take him... his body, away." He was horrified; hadn't they done part of the autopsy on site? Had Desmond watched them cut up his corpse and collect their damn 'samples'?

"Maybe," Rebecca said, nodding slowly. "We probably shouldn't ask him that, though. I feel like it would be in poor taste."

Shaun barked a laugh, then sighed. "Fuck, what a situation," he said quietly. "How are we going to tell Bill?"

Rebecca gave a little shudder, then shook her head. "No. First things first. We're gonna establish his identity, then worry about reporting this. Not sooner."

Shaun nodded, then sighed deeply, holding the plastic cup to his forehead. "Yeah," he agreed aloud, more to say anything at all than to acknowledge his agreement. "Let's get to bed, then." He already knew he'd regret so many of his decisions tonight in the morning, so no reason to delay the inevitable. Also, he was tired. So very, very tired.

"Sure thing, c'mon," Rebecca murmured, fond, and took his cup from his hand, set it aside on their table. "Up you go, you're gonna yell at me if I let you sleep in your sweater."

He would have argued, really he would, but she'd already gotten the damn thing off of him by the time he'd taken the breath to protest. He grumbled under his breath at her instead.

"You're welcome," she retorted, far too cheerfully. "Goodnight, Shaun!"

He grunted back at her, and her laugh was the last thing he heard before he was out.

~

Shaun woke up with only the slightest bit of a hangover, which he was thankful for; he didn't really need a painful reminder of just how much he'd lost it last night. Add injury to insult, that’s exactly what that would have been.

Rebecca greeted him in the 'kitchen' with a warm cup of coffee and some toast. "Bless you," he murmured, and practically inhaled both while she made seconds. She ate with him this time, and the only sounds in the room were the sounds of two people eating - perhaps more noticeable for all that they weren't saying.

By the time their plates were washed and put away and new coffee brewed, Shaun was ready to face the day. And the things that the day held. Like... Desmond. He took a deep breath and nodded decisively.

"Alright, let's do this," he said, pleased that it came out firm. Not at all shaky or nervous. Because he wasn't, of course. Shaky or nervous.

However, he didn't walk with his usual enthusiasm into the server room. He wasn't dragging his feet, mind, but even Rebecca noticed, as she bumped his shoulder with hers on the way. He glanced over and didn't see any holograms in the temple at all.

Instead, his laptop was just the way he left it; his coding UI open exactly as it had been, the small pop-up window with blinking text prompt and blank avatar almost exactly as it had been when he'd stalked out of the room last night. There was a new line of text below Desmond's declaration:

**IM SORRY**

Shaun sat down and let out a heavy breath. He could do this. He could. Rebecca pulled her chair around to his station, setting up just behind him, so close he could hear her breaths, though he couldn't quite feel them.

"Desmond?" he asked aloud, unable to feel anything but silly about doing so.

Immediately, new text appeared in the chatlog.

**IM STILL HERE. IM SORRY.**

Shaun frowned. "How can we be sure you're really Desmond?" he asked, ignoring the apology. It meant nothing if it wasn't really Desmond, and it still might not be.

There was a pause, longer than any so far, but slowly, text appeared on the screen.

**WHEN WE FIRST MET YOU CALLED ME A TINY CHILD. YOU SAID I NEVER TRIED TO ESCAPE ABSTERGO BUT I DID THOUGH NOT EFFECTIVELY. REBECCA ONCE CALLED ME RACIST BECAUSE I TALKED TO A STATUE.**

Shaun almost laughed, he really did. Of all the things he expected, it wasn't that. Rebecca, though, had no such qualms, her laughter easy and bright.

"What do you mean about trying to escape?" She asked, placing her hand on Shaun's shoulder as she leaned forward, as if she needed to.

**LUCY SCRUBBED FOOTAGE. THATS WHAT YOU GUYS GOT APPARENTLY. I WASNT ABLE TO ESCAPE ON MY OWN THOUGH NOT BEFORE VIDIC WOULD HAVE PUT ME UNDER FULL TIME. LUCY GOT ME OUT BEFORE THAT.**

Rebecca sucked in a breath at the reminder of Lucy. "Shit," she breathed, and right then, Shaun knew she believed him. Hell, Shaun believed him, but he really, really didn't want to. Not with all that it meant.

**IM SORRY** , it said again, and Shaun shook his head. 

"Stop saying that!" he yelled, curling his hand into a fist. "You shouldn't be goddamn sorry!" 

Rebecca jerked her hand away from him. "Shaun!" 

"Fuck," he growled. "Why aren't you angry?" 

**WHY WOULD I BE ANGRY**

"We left you, Desmond! Just left you there, and... Abstergo got you, afterwards." 

**WHAT**

**MY BODY IS DEAD**

"I know that, but we didn't.. We couldn't even come back for you before they got you!" 

**NO I MEAN MY BODY IS DEAD**

**MY BODY IS**

**IS MY BODY DEAD**

Rebecca choked a little behind him, then cleared her throat. "Can't quite get the question mark, huh?" she asked. 

**IM WORKING ON IT**

**THIS IS HARD**

Rebecca did let herself laugh at that. "We'll get there, don't worry," she said, but Shaun frowned. 

"Why didn't you know your body was dead? They told us it would happen. How did you get in there?" he asked. "Why are we doing this over text? Were you that apple thing?" 

******I THOUGHT JUNO MIGHT HAVE IT. OR BE IN IT. SINCE IM HERE.** ** **

******I AM THE APPLE THING. I CANNOT MAKE IT LOOK LIKE ME. I CANT MAKE IT SOUND LIKE ME. IT BECOMES JUST NOISE.** ** **

"That was you?" Shaun demanded. "You scared the piss out of us!" 

Rebecca grinned, he could see it in the screen's reflection. "Oh shut up," he groused at her. "So you don't know how you got in there?" he asked. 

******NO. I EXPECTED TO DIE. I THOUGHT I WAS DEAD FOR A LITTLE WHILE.** ** **

******BY THE TIME I REALIZED MY BODY WAS ALREADY GONE** ** **

"Oh," Rebecca murmured. "No, it's... It's dead," she said. "Abstergo took it away for samples. We destroyed many of them, though." 

******SAMPLES** ** **

******WHAT FOR** ** **

Shaun groaned. "Oh, you won't believe this," he sighed, "but they've contracted out people to relive your genetic memories. Then they use that data to, well, yes, look for artifacts and sites, but also turn some of it into movies. Or books, or games. With a heavy templar slant, of course." 

******GAMES** ** **

******THEY TURNED MY DATA INTO GAMES** ** **

******EZIO. ALTAIR. CONNOR.** ** **

Rebecca leaned in, grinning over his shoulder. "There's another, actually. Connor's grandfather, Haytham's father, was Edward Kenway, a pirate from the golden age of piracy. They made his story into a movie!" 

"It wasn't even very good," Shaun muttered. 

******YOU WATCHED IT??** ** **

"There we go!" Rebecca crowed. "A question mark!" 

"Yes, because that's what's important," Shaun snarked. 

******BUT DID YOU REALLY WATCH IT?** ** **

"Yes," Shaun answered. "I didn't give them my money, though. I pirated it." He didn't even try to resist smirking, and Rebecca laughed. There was an odd pause from the text window, and Shaun sort of paused himself when he realized how easily they had fallen into this conversation. 

******I WISH I COULD LAUGH** ** **

******I WOULD BE LAUGHING NOW IF I COULD** ** **

"Aaaand there goes the mood," Shaun said, because he had to say something to break the pall that had fallen over them. "Way to go, Desmond." 

Rebecca swatted his arm. "Don't worry, we'll figure it all out. So, what's it like in there?" she asked. 

******BIG. LIKE REALLY BIG.** ** **

******THERE IS SO MUCH HERE, SO MUCH INFORMATION** ** **

******THERE IS SOME I THINK YOU WOULD FIND INTERESTING IF I COULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO SHARE IT WITH YOU** ** **

"What kind of information?" Shaun asked, because, well, this was what they were here for, wasn't it? And, well, he did kind of want to steer the conversation away from the depressing reality where Desmond couldn't laugh because Shaun was being clever. 

******ALL KINDS. LOTS OF BORING SHIT BUT YOU'D PROBABLY LIKE IT** ** **

******CENSUS DATA. WEATHER DATA. SOME DIARIES OR JOURNALS TOO.** ** **

******TECHNOLOGY AND MAPS** ** **

******SOME OF THEIR HISTORY TOO** ** **

******BEFORE AND AFTER THE CATASTROPHE** ** **

Shaun tried not to smile, he really did, but... Desmond was right, those were things he would like to read. Part of him felt it couldn't really be this easy, but most of him really, really wanted it to be. 

"Well then," he said, glancing over at Rebecca, whose grin matched his own. "Let's get to work." 


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn’t until Rebecca asked about it that Desmond realized he never considered how his father was going to find out about his situation. He thought maybe he'd assumed Shaun or Rebecca would tell him, and that would be that. But two days after he revealed himself, Rebecca drops the bomb and asked what he thought would be the best way to inform William of the situation.

**YOU DIDN'T ALREADY TELL HIM?**

"Well, not yet," she hedged, glancing over to Shaun, who shrugged back at her. "We're going to, obviously, just, y'know, haven't figured out quite how."

**I DON'T KNOW, JUST TELL HIM THE TRUTH.**

"Well, yeah," she rolled her eyes, "but _how?"_

"What she means is, how can we tell him without him losing it," Shaun supplied. "See, things were pretty shit after you died, and he kind of, well, lost it. So, we'd like to avoid that again, if at all possible." Desmond often had moments where he missed having a body, and this was one of them - which was odd, because he wanted to smile at the fact that Shaun was now so much more comfortable referring to the death of Desmond's body - to Desmond - than he had been just two days ago.

**WHAT HAPPENED?**

"He dropped out of contact, left Gavin his book," Rebecca said, and Shaun nodded, huffed out a sharp breath. That was all Desmond needed to realize how much his father must have been affected by his sacrifice - he honestly wouldn't have believed it coming from anyone else (even his dad himself, let's be real). For William to drop contact with the Brotherhood... Desmond couldn't even wrap his mind around it. For almost all of his life, Desmond thought William cared more about the Brotherhood than his own son.

**TELL HIM THE TRUTH.**

**I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SAY IT BEST. TELL HIM I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW.**

Shaun sighed. "You're no help at all," he grumped. "He's halfway across the world, following a lead on a new artifact. I don't know if he's more likely to drop everything to come take a look at you, or yell at us for wasting his time and make us wait for him."

Desmond might have assumed the second just a few minutes ago, but now he wasn't so sure.

**WELL, IT'S NOT LIKE I'M GOING ANYWHERE.**

Rebecca's peal of laughter was sharp and bright. "True enough. Shaun, go make the call!" She leaned closer to the camera on her laptop and stage-whispered, "He lost the coin toss."

"Stuff it!" Shaun yelled at her, pulling a face, but he did get up out of his seat and stretched, popping his back. He sauntered out of the room slowly, and Desmond tracked him on the temple's cameras until he was out of site.

**I WISH I COULD TALK TO YOU GUYS PROPERLY.**

Rebecca 'hmmm'ed sadly, then her brow furrowed. "Hold on, you know... We have your audio files," she said absently, clicking through her computer.

**AUDIO FILES?**

For a moment, he thought she meant from Abstergo somehow. Rebecca nodded absently, reaching into her bag to grab a thumb drive and cables that ended up connecting her phone to the drive.

"Yeah, the ones you recorded on your cell phone. Which, by the way, dick move, you know? How did you know what was going to happen? Why didn't you say anything?" The transfer didn't take long before she was plugging the drive into the laptop instead, a few more clicks starting a new transfer as the files were downloaded onto the laptop.

**I DIDN'T KNOW FOR SURE. I RECORDED THEM JUST IN CASE. I DIDN'T THINK YOU'D ACTUALLY EVER HEAR THEM.**

Rebecca sighed. "Yeah, it... it was rough," she said quietly. "Here, in this folder."

Desmond had gotten much better at navigating their systems, and even better at navigating the Isu database. He'd even managed bringing the files he wanted to share, but that ball was currently in their court - he could only translate them slowly, and only if he was focusing on that and only that. They were working on a program to help him along, and it was trial and error right now.

**I WILL HAVE TO WORK ON THIS. PRACTICE. NO JUDGING.**

Rebecca grinned at him. "No promises," she said, with a wink for the camera. "Do it on your own time, we still have work to do. Run the helper file real quick, I made some changes."

And there was another moment of missing his body; Rebecca's good humor was infectious and he wanted to smile back at her, to laugh with her. Still, at least the work made a good distraction.

~

Shaun returned to the temple a little over two hours later. Desmond hadn't exactly been keeping track of the time, he was just... _aware_ , that was all. He couldn't help but track how Shaun was moving slowly, as if lost in thought, his movements stiff and awkward in a way that wasn't natural - Shaun might have been verbally awkward, but he was rarely so physically.

Shaun hesitated once he reached the point where he had to decide if he was going to enter the server room or their bedroom. His eyes flicked to where he knew one of the Temple's cameras existed, then he sighed and turned towards the server room. Desmond could almost feel the phantom sensation of muscles tensing for an unpleasant conversation. He was also running commentary to Rebecca about her 'changes' still, but it was easy now to split his attention so by now; he'd mastered having two conversations simultaneously, so simply observing out of his cameras while he 'talked' was hardly trying at all.

Rebecca glanced up when Shaun entered the room, and stopped halfway through her sentence at his expression. She sat back slightly, removed her hands from the keyboard of her laptop. "Not good?"

Shaun sighed and shook his head, took his glasses off to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Not really, no," he said. "It's... He doesn't believe it."

Rebecca glanced at the laptop screen where Desmond's blank avatar was, where his text from their conversation remained. "He doesn't believe you?"

Shaun shook his head again. "No, he believes me that I believe that it's Desmond, but he doesn't believe it can be. He thinks what I thought originally; an A.I. of some sort, pretending to be Desmond for reasons we can't fathom." He sounded tired, but honestly, Desmond had always been exhausted every time he spoke with his dad, so at least that was a universal experience.

"Is he going to pull us?" Rebecca asked, leaning forward. "We're actually making progress, he can't just-"

"He's not pulling us, Becca, hush." Shaun paused before stepping closer to her, in one of the few parts of the rooms Desmond didn't have a good view - he had three laptop camera views in here, but they didn't cover everything. "He wants us to be careful. He says we shouldn't trust it, and we definitely shouldn't be giving it any information, and that for all we know, it's funneling everything we say and do directly to Abstergo, and everything we learn from it might be a plant."

Rebecca rolled her eyes. "Shaun! You don't actually believe that, do you?"

Shaun took in a deep breath, and Desmond could just pick up the slow release of it. "I don't want to," he said slowly, and if Desmond could breathe, he'd be holding his own breath now. "I don't want to, but how can we know?"

"How can we know?" Rebecca repeated. "He knows things only Desmond would know!"

"Really?" Shaun asked. "You can't think of any way Abstergo could get its hands on that information? Because I can! For all that I hate the idea that it is Desmond in there for reasons I don't have time to examine much less explain, I still would prefer him in there than gone! And yet, how does this make sense at all? When you sit down and think about it, how likely can it be?"

Thing is, Shaun had a point. Desmond could already put together how Abstergo could program something like...himself. Or, at least what his father feared he was. He only had one point of reference for something like this; Clay. The difference was that Clay programmed himself into the Animus. His program knew it, he, was a program. But Desmond didn't have that knowledge. If Abstergo programmed him, couldn't they program him not to know that? If their aim was to deceive the Assassins, why wouldn't they do so? Why else would he lack any knowledge between his 'death' and his 'awakening', later enough that he doesn't even know how much time passed between?

Rebecca was saying something back, but Desmond wasn't paying attention anymore. He retreated somewhat - enough that if they called to him directly, he'd respond, but it let him focus inward instead, try to answer the question Shaun hadn't posed to him directly, yet.

How could he prove who he is?

 _Can_ he prove who he is? All he had were his memories, and according to Clay, that's all people ever really were. But also thanks to Clay, he knew that constructs can have memories too, as well as wants, desires. Desmond knew that he was not funneling anything to Abstergo - at least, if he was doing that, it wasn't knowingly. The thought made him panic for a moment, he checked and double checked, and confirmed that the only connection he could even sense outside the Isu database was the connection Rebecca had built herself. But still, he couldn’t prove that to them, can he?

He chose to play a thought game for a moment; he tried to think about why Abstergo might plant him here. They'd have to know the Assassins would come back, for one. But if they did, wouldn't that mean they'd have some idea what they were after? If Desmond wasn't reporting to them, what was his purpose? Distraction? If they intended to let the Assassins do the 'dirty work' of translating databases and then take the information from them afterwards, why would they use explosives to block the cave and require months of digging? With their money and manpower, why wouldn't they just do it themselves? Try as he might, Desmond only came up with more questions, and no answers.

But it kept circling back to the main point, which had nothing to do with Abstergo.

How could he prove who he is?

How can _he_ even know for sure who he is?

One thing about not having a body, at least, is that he couldn't get headaches from circular questions anymore.

Of course, if he had his body, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

"Desmond? Where did he go?" Rebecca asked. She sounded like she'd been calling him for a few moments. A quick peek at the room revealed that Shaun was either still in his blind spot, or he'd left.

**SORRY. I WAS THINKING.**

"Hey, yeah, I get it. Look, we're um, we're gonna retire for the night. We need to talk about some stuff."

Desmond couldn't wince anymore, not physically, but he could still feel a wince, which was both strange and unpleasant. Rebecca looked sheepish, but she didn't take the words back.

**I UNDERSTAND.**

It wasn't a lie, he did understand. But, it was still awful, the knowledge that they wanted privacy. Privacy from him.

Rebecca looked conflicted, but she nodded. "Goodnight, Desmond," she said, making intense eye-contact with the laptop camera. Then she nodded, and left the server room, face drawn and tired like Shaun's had been earlier. Shaun didn't follow, which meant he must have left earlier when Desmond was distracted.

He didn't bother replying; she was already gone.

~

Desmond didn't sleep, of course. He _could_ , sort of, but there was no dreaming, no true rest. When he 'slept', there was only the gray, and it wasn't anything like rest, not anything like dreams - only an endless hum, a pressure, a fog. A feeling like he wasn't alone, yet he had no voice, no hands to reach out. There were no voices to hear, no hands to grasp, anyway. Only pressure, and the hum.

Instead, he worked, plugged away at the latest version of Rebecca's translation software, trying to interface the two technologies better, trying to figure out how best to communicate what he learned, what could be improved.

He was not at all thinking about the pair being pulled from this 'mission'. Nor was he thinking of what would be infinitely worse: them choosing to leave of their own volition, never to return. Maybe the Assassins would send someone else, someone to test Desmond, or try to purge him from their systems, from the Isu systems. Maybe they'd take everything with them and re-demolish the entrance, leaving Desmond here, alone, for as long as the temple had power to sustain the computers - which he knew would be for a lot longer still. He wondered if he could just stop ...existing. Not that he wanted to, but somehow, before the Assassins showed up, he hadn't actually truly thought about his situation objectively. He couldn't even figure out why, because his situation was objectively awful.

Time didn't really exist in a way that meant anything to him anymore, though. He hadn't yet gotten truly bored - but maybe if that happened... Maybe that's why Juno was crazy. Tens of thousands of years, trapped in this state? Suddenly, that prospect was real in a way that he just hadn't even considered until now. If the Assassins left, if they demolished the entrance like Abstergo had... There was nothing left here for anyone - Abstergo was finished with the place, their knowledge of the site was likely tidied up in a small file on a computer or in a room somewhere, with a designation of 'no further interest'. And the Assassins were so far-flung and thinly spread that if no one of his team mentioned the site, no one else would know about it. Desmond himself only received the information on its location after achieving the sync nexus while being sustained by the Animus in a coma that Juno herself induced! Abstergo only had found it because they'd tracked him.

No one else would find him now, though.

Endless years, alone, in the temple, no one to see or hear or talk to? Nothing to do, nowhere to go? Uncounted centuries with no way to rest or sleep or just stop? 

He wanted to shake, to yell, to cry at the thought, and he could do none of those things! He wanted to blare as much noise from the temple speakers as he could, just to have Shaun or Rebecca come yell at him, just so he wouldn't be alone now, even if he would have to be later. But he didn't. They'd be coming back to the server room - they had to. They'd have to take their stuff with them, wouldn't they?

Or would the fact that he'd been 'in' them be enough to write the hardware off as a loss? Desmond knew he couldn't 'fit' in the laptops, not all of what made up 'himself' in this state. He just sort of stretched a little of himself into them, like poking his head in through a window. He couldn't go with them, even if he desperately wanted to! But if they thought he was a virus, or an A.I., they might not take the risk at all. They might decide to leave the equipment behind.

Desmond couldn't feel cold, but the thought lingered in his nonexistent bones, a chill he couldn't shake.

If they were going to leave him... he'd rather figure out how to die for real than face hundreds, thousands of years alone. He'd beg if he had to. Surely they would give him that much? (He absolutely did not consider that they might not even be able to, even if they wanted to.)

He wasn't going to disturb them, he wasn't, but he couldn't sleep anyway, right? So what else was he going to do but keep watch through the one camera that pointed at the hallway leading to their bedroom? Well, except to also keep watch through the camera that overlooked the main entrance - he was almost certain there weren't any other exits out of the bedroom that would allow them could sneak out without talking to him, but he couldn't take that chance. He couldn't even bear the thought.

It was a very long night.


	6. Chapter 6

There were no doors to slam in the temple, and Shaun bitterly resented that at the moment. Not that it would keep Rebecca out, not that he even _wanted_ to keep Rebecca out, but doors were always an excellent way to let out pent up anger without too much actual damage.

Just this morning, he was cheerful and excited, and now he was angry and sick to his stomach. Most conversations will Bill left him in one state or the other, but this last one took it to a new level. It was almost funny, though, Bill's skepticism; when Desmond had first fallen into the coma, Shaun had been the one cautioning Bill that his son might have been programmed, might have been a Templar. And Bill had been the one denying it. This time, Shaun had been fighting to prove that Desmond was who he said he was.

And yet, even he couldn't deny that Bill had a point - Abstergo had been farming out memories for years now, they had samples from Desmond after his death (which would include the full sum of his memories), and they almost certainly had the resources and capabilities of programming something like what Desmond was now. What claimed to be Desmond, anyway. Ugh, he _hated_ having to think like this!

What he said earlier was true; he didn't have the time _or_ the desire to examine his complicated feelings about Desmond and whatever state he may or may not be in right now. Last time he had to face the prospect seriously, Rebecca let him drink instead.

_Good woman._

He glanced around for a moment, trying to see if he could spy any likely spots for Rebecca's little stash, but at that moment Rebecca ducked into the doorway and sighed.

"I'm not pulling out the whiskey again," she said, hands on her hips, brows raised.

"I know!" he scowled at her, then hung his head, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "Becca, what are we going to do?"

She shrugged, moved and sat down on her cot, leaned back against the wall and crossed her legs. Occasionally, he envied her laid-back personality, but sometimes, like right now, it was infuriating. But he knew the game she was playing and took a deep breath - just because it pissed him off didn't mean she was wrong. There was no rush, they had time for a discussion.

She smiled at him - not quite a smirk, but close. "Well, let's talk it through - say he is what Bill thinks he is, what does that mean?"

Shaun began pacing, eyes flitting over the room as he thought through the options quickly, but he wasn't really seeing anything. "Well, for one, Abstergo knows we're here. If they put him there, they had to suspect we'd be coming back. If they suspected we'd be coming back, they knew we'd have a reason. If they knew we had a reason, they have suspicions on what that might be. Which means they already have to know what's in here - they'd have to, because we still can't directly interface with the systems, and they'd have to have been able to, to put something like Desmond in there." He paused, took a breath. "Which also means they'd have copied the information we're after at the least, if not removed it entirely - and that we're wasting our time here, and they know it, they're encouraging it! Chasing our tails and losing time trying to connect with our friend, instead of actually doing anything about what was here in the first place! Plus, any information we give him is then given to Abstergo - anything we've told him about the brotherhood, about his father's whereabouts. Even the fact that we now suspect he isn't real, they know it."

Rebecca nodded sagely. "Okay, so what would our next step be?"

Shaun sighed. "Well, we take what we can, and we leave. There's nothing here for us."

"Unless they can't actually remove anything from the Isu servers, and could only leave this one thing," she said. "Which means what we need is still there."

"We're relying on Desmond to help translate now - we'd have to cut him out, and do what we intended in the first place, figure out how to translate it ourselves. If we trusted him to translate for us, that would be all they need to misdirect us."

"So let's do that. We can have Desmond 'help' on the current computers - between us, we can figure out a way to block him from a different one, one he hasn't touched yet. The Brotherhood already have agents and techs crawling Abstergo's files and servers - if Abstergo has this information, we could still get it that way if all of that is true."

"Yes, but then they'll know that we don't trust Desmond anymore," Shaun pointed out. "If they know we're here, they could just wipe us out and take our equipment once they realize we're not playing their game."

Rebecca nodded. "Which brings us to again to leaving. Here's the thing, Shaun: if all of that is true, that means Abstergo has had whatever data is in here for four years at the very least. And you and I both know that what we're after is not something that Abstergo would just sit on. They _couldn't_ ; we've been riding their asses hard these last couple of years."

"We don't even know exactly what it is we're after," he grumbled, but nodded and sighed. "You're right, though - we've been on them for so long there's no way they could have discovered something of significant magnitude without us knowing it."

"Which means, even _if_ Desmond is a plant, they still need us to be here to discover whatever it is we're after." Rebecca was a little smug, but he'd allow it - she was right, after all, and he'd calmed down considerably from his snit earlier.

"Yes, well, it also means we need to be very careful about how we proceed. Once they know we know, we need to keep an eye out."

Rebecca nodded. "The rest of our team is arriving in two days," she reminded, not without a little snark, and Shaun barked out a laugh.

"I know," he said. Bill had had to remind him - in his fury, Shaun had actually forgotten they weren't going to be here by themselves forever, which is hilarious because they were almost never actually alone. Even now that he'd been in the field for years, they usually had back-up.

"Which means, that if Desmond was a plant...?" she prompted.

"Then nothing changes," he finished, barely holding back a sigh.

"Exactly," she said firmly. "Now. What if Desmond is what he says he is?"

Shaun stopped pacing and looked at her, lost for a moment. What if Desmond was who he said he was? Then everything Shaun was ignoring was real, and he hated it. But he took a deep breath, forced himself to look away and keep moving. She was looking at him like she knew him again; he hated that look.

_Awful woman._

"Then Abstergo doesn't know we're here. Abstergo either found what they were after, or found nothing of value. We didn't actually see any evidence of tampering in the server room at all - but we did see plenty of damage on the other consoles, so we can't actually rule out that they didn't obtain any data here, but judging by their actions in the past four years, they either didn't get what we were after or have deemed it impossible to get, or perhaps they haven't even finished translating and interpreting the data itself. It means we might actually have the edge on them if we can get what we're after, and if we can trust Desmond, that might actually go faster," he listed out, then sighed. "It means Desmond really is alive, but he's trapped here," he added softly. He knew she heard by the small gasp, and the fact that she sat up, swung her legs to the side of her cot.

"Shaun," she breathed, in that pitying tone he hated so much, already making her way closer, slowly.

"It means we're going to figure out a way to get him out of here. We might not be able to give him a body, but he won't have to stay here," he said firmly, and Rebecca stopped in front of him, eyes wide.

She grinned. "Hell yeah we will! If anyone could figure out how to get him out of there, it would be us!"

He grinned back at her, and paused, looking for words to thank her properly for always putting up with his, well, everything, but she rolled her eyes.

"Don't even," she said, holding up a hand. "Let's just get started."

Shaun's smile returned on its own. "Good woman," he said, and knew she already understood. She always did.

~

Shaun woke the next morning with a renewed sense of determination, as well as gratitude that he wouldn't have to face this morning with the results of the angry drinking he'd contemplated the night before. They were going to play by the Mentor's rules, if more by the letter than the spirit.

Shaun knew he'd have to tread delicately when he was deliberately gaming the system like this, but it would be worth it.

By the time he was up, washed, fed and coffee'd, Rebecca had already set up a fresh new computer, ready to interface with the Isu systems and keep Desmond out. Y'know, once they figured out how to do that part. Shaun had some ideas, but he'd only chime in if Rebecca asked - she knew her shit, as it were, and likely didn't need his help at all. She packed up the kit to take with her into the server room, and Shaun graciously helped by carrying the cables she'd already gathered.

"Morning, Desmond!" she called out when she entered. She set the laptop down on one of the tables behind her workstation, and sat down to chat with Desmond. "How ya feeling?"

Shaun was much more sedate when he took his seat, eyes flicking to Desmond's little window on his screen; when conversations were held at "Room Volume", Desmond often replied on both screens.

**I'M NOT SURE.**

Shaun frowned down at the display, eyes flicking to the camera briefly. Rebecca answered before he could.

"What do you mean?"

**I DON'T KNOW THAT I CAN PROVE WHO I AM.**

**I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I BELIEVE I AM WHO I THOUGHT I WAS.**

"Bullshit!" Rebecca called, and Shaun echoed it almost instantly.

"How can you say that?"

**MY FATHER - WILLIAM - HAS A POINT. ABSTERGO COULD MAKE ME. CLAY DID. I COULD BE WHAT HE WAS.**

"What do you mean?" Shaun asked. He knew Desmond had seen Clay when he was in the coma, but Desmond hadn't really wanted to talk about it too much, and Shaun had never pressed. He glanced over to Rebecca, who met his gaze and shrugged, just as clueless as he, apparently.

**HE WAS IN THE ANIMUS. ON THE ISLAND. HE WASN'T JUST A PROGRAM, THOUGH. HE... HE HAD WANTS. DESIRES. FEELINGS. HE SAID HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE IN THE ANIMUS ANYMORE, ASKED IF HE COULD COME WITH ME SOMEHOW, UNTIL WE COULD GET HIM INTO A BODY. I TOLD HIM NO. HE ALREADY KNEW THAT HE WAS DEAD. I KNOW THAT I'M DEAD, TOO.**

**WHAT IF I AM LIKE CLAY? JUST A PROGRAM? THERE'S SO MUCH I CAN'T ANSWER.**

Shaun swallowed at that, because how could he answer those questions? "I don't know," he said, honestly. "I don't have those answers, either. But here's the thing; we've decided to trust you. We're going to play by your father's rules, which means we're going to set up a computer you can't get into, and work on these translations on our own until he can get here, and assure himself you are who you say you are."

"Here's the thing, Desmond," Rebecca said, firmly, and Shaun could tell she was staring into the laptop camera, "We've talked it through - even if you aren't the 'real' Desmond, you still talk like him, feel like him. That's real enough for me. Just like you met Clay, whether or not he was 'real' at the time. You are Desmond, in every way that matters."

Desmond was quiet for a little bit, and Rebecca set about setting up a new workstation while Shaun fiddled with checking settings on Desmond's access to pass along to Rebecca.

**HE SAID SOMETHING ONCE. BEFORE HE ALLOWED HIMSELF TO BE DELETED TO SAVE ME. HE SAID WE WERE THE STORIES WE LIVED, THE TALES WE TELL OURSELVES. ALL WE REALLY ARE IS A COLLECTION OF MEMORIES - I KNOW THAT I'M DESMOND BECAUSE I HOLD ALL OF DESMOND'S MEMORIES, AND THAT’S IT.**

**I REALLY AM NOT FUNNELING ANYTHING INTO ABSTERGO. THERE'S NO CONNECTIONS OUT OF HERE EXCEPT YOURS. NOTHING HAS EVEN TOUCHED THE ISU DATABASE, EITHER. I DON’T THINK THEY GOT ANYTHING OUT OF THE TEMPLE AT ALL.**

Shaun smiled at that. "We figured as much, unless they spent a lot more time covering their tracks betting on how likely we were to return here, which is generally not something they do. But, until we can convince your father that you're the real deal, we're at least going to try to set things up to go around you. That'll be Rebecca's job. That means you get to help me a lot more," he added, just loud enough for Rebecca to hear and object.

She did not disappoint. "Yeah, well, good luck translating all those boring census details," she snorted. "I'll be going after the good stuff. Already got a good idea on how to find it, too, so nyeh!" Then she very maturely stuck her tongue out at him. He sniffed disdainfully in return.

"Yes well, I have a feeling that census data will be more important than you think," he said. "You know I've an eye for these kinds of things, so don't worry, I won't hold that against you," he added, as patronizingly as possible.

**:D**

Shaun laughed at the little emoticon on the screen. Desmond couldn't laugh anymore, but he could at least let them know when he wanted to. And even if it wasn't perfect, it would have to be good enough, or at least good enough to not bring them down every time they saw it.

Rebecca laughed, a quick, happy sound that let Shaun know Desmond had sent something to her that he hadn't gotten. He was glad to know that Rebecca was in this with him, that she believed as he did, that Desmond was real.

All they had to do was convince his father.


	7. Chapter 7

For Desmond, things didn't change all that much after that conversation. He spent more time examining himself, looking for similarities or differences to the Clay that he met when his mind was broken. Clay had been fractured, yes, but he'd also been so _real_ in a way that Desmond had hesitated to talk about.

Clay had been frightening for a number of reasons; Desmond saw a narrowly avoided future at the time, but now Desmond wasn't sure if it had been so narrowly avoided after all. It was difficult for him to find differences between them now, and it ate at him. Clay had seemed to accept that he wasn't 'real', though, and Desmond struggled with that. He was certain he was real! Or at least he _had been_ ; he had so many reasons to doubt now.

Sometimes, and these were the times that scared him the most, he wondered if it even mattered. He knew, as much as he could know, that if he was an Abstergo plant, he had to be failing. Not only was he not funneling information to Abstergo somehow, but he'd even sowed doubt about his existence in the two people he'd be extracting from! But even if he were a copy, failed or not, what did it matter at this point? He couldn't even leave the goddamn Temple! Real or not, he was here, now, like this, and it wasn't likely ever going to change! He hated how much time he spent on these thoughts, but he had so little else to do, and they demanded his attention like almost nothing else had since he woke up like this.

A couple days after the bomb that was the phone call with William, more Assassins showed up at the Temple. He could see them setting up watch schedules and adding more equipment to the site, but none of them were apparently here for the computer end of things. They sometimes watched, if Desmond played with the avatars or something, but they never called out, never approached. They were all terrible at being distractions. Usually, the only thing that kept him engaged was Rebecca or Shaun - and recently, Rebecca had taken to working on something she couldn't talk to him about, involving the other laptop. Now, he had guesses, but she still talked with him, so he wasn't too fussed about it. Sometimes, when they were asleep, he'd analyze the recording she gave him, the ones he’d left for his dad, and practice talking out loud with the Temple's speakers in the areas that the Assassins hadn’t bothered to clear yet. It was easiest to focus on the task when he wasn't conversing via text, so he often did it in the dead of night, only occasionally startling one of the agents on the night watch when they wandered close enough to hear the faint echoes.

It was difficult, at first, to match sounds and pitch. He could frankenstein the pieces together if he wanted the result to be terrible and awful, like the earliest attempts at auto-speech. After practice, he could slowly start to make the effort sound smoother, more natural. He'd get it eventually, and until then, he'd stick with the text prompts - he'd already figured out how to type properly, with text and punctuation and all that, but he was waiting for Shaun to call him out on it.

Honestly, he was surprised it was taking so long - Shaun had thrown such shit at Juno for her terrible emails!

Rebecca had also provided him with some of the video recordings of himself, to maybe use for the hologram, but he was having much less luck with that than the audio, to be honest. He often thought that if he could just access the Temple's camera logs to see himself, he'd be much better off in terms of syncing images to display a full model, but he knew that the biggest barrier in any situation was going to be himself and his lack of knowledge of the Isu systems.

The most important thing was keeping himself busy, and, well, he really didn't suffer a lack of options there.

By the time he was fairly confident in his ability to speak mostly like himself when he was alive, he decided that he'd wait for a sufficiently dramatic reveal. After all, it had gone so well the first time, hadn't it?

~

Hilariously, to Desmond's mind, it took Shaun actually having to look at Rebecca's screen to catch on to Desmond's little grammar game.

"What the hell, Desmond? Why have you been writing like a bloody Speak & Spell if you could write like a normal person?"

Desmond paused for a moment, and regretted that he couldn't smile. He could still _feel_ the way his lips would have stretched around the expression, the way his cheeks would have scrunched and his eyes would have narrowed with the expression. He could still feel exactly how it would have been, a tiny smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth before the grin came through, and it sucked, god it really sucked that he couldn't just do that anymore. Couldn't just smile. Couldn't take a breath in, either, though; he had no lungs to feel tight in a situation like this, though he could still feel the sensation, a whole phantom body he would never have again.

"Well," he replied slowly, using the laptop's tinny speakers. "I was waiting for you to say something."

Shaun just stared, mouth slightly open. Unfortunately, even that wasn't a terrible look on him, but Rebecca laughed and diverted Desmond from another maudlin journey into all the ways not having a body anymore was immensely terrible.

"Oh my god, your face!" she cackled at Shaun, who jerked out of that stillness to glare at her.

"You're terrible," he seethed, and her laughs almost doubled in volume.

"That was great," she offered, patting the laptop. It was something she did now and again, though Desmond couldn't feel it at all. He knew it was more for her than him, but still, it made him feel weird to realize that for them, this was him now. Even he forgot, sometimes. You know, like when he remembered so intensely what it was like to feel things like a human would.

"Hey, Rebecca," Desmond called to her, though he didn't laugh. It didn't sound good enough yet, not quite natural to his ear. "Shaun. Sorry, I uh, I couldn't resist. I've been practicing - is it any good? Do I sound like me?"

Rebecca sobered, wiping at her eyes, smooshing at her cheeks even though she clearly couldn't manage to stop smiling. "Yeah, you sound good," she said, moving to elbow Shaun, who'd taken to staring at the laptop again.

"Yeah," he echoed, faintly. "You sound... You sound just like yourself. You're not surprised, did you help him?," he asked, eyes flickering to Rebecca, who nodded.

"Nah, he asked about it earlier, and I, uh, gave him the memos we got from his phone. All I had to give 'im," she said, a rare somber look on her face.

Shaun opened his mouth to say something, and, almost too fast for Desmond to catch, visibly changed his mind about what he'd been about to say, turning his attention to the laptop instead of Rebecca.

"I can't believe you made me put up with all caps for weeks, Desmond! _Weeks!"_

"Honestly?," Desmond replied, glad that he could finally do this - if he couldn't physically smile anymore, at least he could sound like he would have been, if he could. "I'm surprised you put up with it that long, myself." Maybe he couldn't laugh properly yet without sounding like a creepy robot, but he had a feeling it wasn't very far off.

~

Things fell into a pattern for Desmond after that. Rebecca would greet him first in the mornings, perky and carefree, and Shaun would amble in a little later with coffee in hand, grumpy and tired. Then they'd each work on separate projects. Shaun had a lot going on, at least one other laptop he actively used that wasn't connected to the Isu console (and thus, Desmond), and as far as Desmond could gleam, he was catching up on e-mails and providing support to other field teams, probably much like he had been doing when Desmond was first 'rescued' by the Assassins. Otherwise, he engaged with Desmond a lot, working on translations for the databases and actually attempting to learn some of the Isu language, and most recently, enlisting Desmond's assistance with things in the Temple itself, like attempting to access other control panels - specifically ones with the batteries, to see if they could be removed. Desmond actually learned a little bit more about the Temple with this little job, learned even more about how to sense 'where' he was in relation to the real world when he did things like this with Shaun.

Rebecca worked on her second laptop much more often than she worked on Desmond's. He had a feeling she was working on much the same shit as Shaun, but without Desmond's ability to snoop or help with it. (He could tell she was accessing the database, sure, could even see where she was going, he just couldn't tell if _she_ could tell what she was doing yet. He didn't bother to ask her, figuring she wouldn't tell him either way.) Desmond didn't even have to guess that that was his father's orders. She'd modified the 'Desmond' laptop to work with her headphones, though, so she could talk to him whenever she wanted. She had made sure she could cut off that connection at her discretion, but Desmond didn't mind. She deserved her privacy, and it wasn't like he really wanted to listen to her eating or using the bathroom or whatever.

The biggest hurdle in making progress with Shaun was honestly Desmond himself. Shaun wrote a fantastic program that Desmond could interact with seamlessly for translations. The main problem was that Desmond himself was not a program and could only work so fast when it came to translations. The program was quick to plug them in after that, but it was slow going at first. He had no idea what kind of progress Rebecca was making.

In downtime, they updated him on the status of the Brotherhood, and the Initiates and Abstergo's latest activities, and, Desmond's favorite, the greatest hits reel of their field missions over the last couple of years. It was amazing, because he still couldn't imagine Shaun doing what he'd done, infiltrating Abstergo - _as a barista???_ \- and ultimately destroying a ton of their servers, backups, and samples. It was amazing to hear, and he might have thought Shaun would puff up his own role in the endeavor, but Rebecca backed him up 100%, and even managed to make Shaun seem like even more of a badass.

Of course, Rebecca took a bullet meant for Shaun once, so, she'd always have that over him. That wasn't talked about very often, though. Desmond got the feeling that Shaun both hated that he'd been the one to call off the mission to retrieve the Shroud and that he'd do it again in a heartbeat if it meant saving Rebecca's life.

He couldn't help but wonder how close they really were. He'd wondered before, but never got a straight answer. He knew Shaun had dated women in the past, and that he was a private person regarding the important shit, and that they talked and bickered like an old married couple. It wasn't his business now any more than it had been then, so he didn't bother asking this time either.

He wondered, more than once, if it were possible to leave here. If he could somehow get out of the Temple, could he infiltrate networks? Could he sneak onto Abstergo servers and get their data? Cause trouble? He didn't really dream, sleeping or waking, but he did fantasize, wondering what it would look like, how useful he could be.

Because of course he was still an Assassin. Abstergo's goals were all wrong, and if he could do something to stop them, he wanted to. But he got the feeling that asking to be removed from the Temple somehow wouldn't go over well. He hated being trapped, yes, but he also didn't want to jeopardize his friends' presence here. He didn't want to make them distrust him. He could operate the Temple speakers just fine now, but he still struggled with the display. It was one of the things he was hoping Shaun could help him with, once he was familiar with the Isu systems.

He wondered then, what Juno was doing. Neither Shaun nor Rebecca had answers for him. Desmond thought it funny - he didn't exactly want her in his body, but it would make it a little easier to keep tabs on her. Also, his body would be alive. Like this, they couldn't track her; they could only grasp at straws.

There'd been some odd encounters or stories of encounters, and a weird cult that had sprung up, but neither of them had seen her, had no real guesses on where she was, what her goals were, or how she was going to achieve them. They were confident she'd had contact with the Templars, but to what end, they didn't yet know.

He had a feeling it was very, very important for them to find that out, that whatever it is she was after, the Assassins definitely needed to be there first.


	8. Chapter 8

It wasn't exactly a secret that Shaun was a little bit of a rebel. Always looking at all angles, he was, seeking to undermine those that abuse their power. It was how he became an Assassin, obviously, but that didn't mean he respected all the Assassin authorities all the time.

William, for example. William _in particular_ , actually, at this particular time.

He knew, of course, that William would not approve at all of his plan to get Desmond out of the Temple. William's reasons for not believing Desmond was real were his own, but Shaun couldn't help but disapprove. He'd only seen a contentious relationship between them for a few short weeks, and gotten hints of the same from before, but it had seemed they were starting to heal that rift between them before Desmond ...died.

And yet, now William wouldn't come to the Temple. He couldn't stop Shaun from working with Desmond, though, and Shaun had reluctantly agreed to have Rebecca try to access the Isu mainframe without Desmond's interference (without Desmond's knowledge, if possible, though even Shaun doubted Desmond was so dim he couldn't put it together on context clues alone). He wouldn't even try to verify Desmond's existence.

'What is the point?' he'd asked, and Shaun could only say 'he's your son' so many ways before it became clear that whatever those words meant to William, they weren't enough to move him. Possibly because Shaun couldn't one hundred percent verify Desmond's authenticity. For all that Shaun wanted to be furious at the man, William had sounded torn up by decision, and that alone was just enough to keep Shaun's outright disobedience at bay.

So they'd compromised.

Now, Shaun wasn't an idiot. He wasn't going to just tell William he planned on removing Desmond from the Temple. He'd show him. Once he figured out _how._

He had to conscript Rebecca's help, mostly because Desmond himself had once said that he wouldn't 'fit' in the laptops, that they were too 'small'. So he needed specialized equipment to hold a large amount of 'data', and who else to build that than Rebecca? Especially because he hoped they'd be able to scavenge some Isu hardware wholesale - even if they could study it close enough to copy it, which he doubted, they absolutely didn't have the resources to manufacture it. He wasn't sure anyone on earth could, based on the sophistication of the technology, but one thing at a time.

He'd already started exploring the easily accessible parts of the temple with Gale - one of the guard crew - as he worked with Desmond to understand the temple better. Gale never looked completely comfortable talking with Desmond, though. Occasionally, Desmond would be able to point out something interesting around them, though not often. He didn't seem to understand his current home very well - not that Shaun blamed him, but it was disappointing. Honestly, a traitorous A.I. might have held a few small benefits in that regard. He still preferred having Desmond, though.

He'd been able to collect some small parts of consoles and control panels from the temple so far, and Desmond was working on figuring out which of the batteries would fuck things up the least if he disconnected them, so it was possible that they might have a great power source for whatever it was they eventually built to house Desmond.

Shaun hadn't told Desmond his plan, yet. Didn't want to get his hopes up, but he had a feeling his breakthrough wasn't too far off.

~

It took Desmond a couple of days to refute Shaun's theory that the best battery (power cell, Desmond said the Isu called them) to remove was the last one he'd installed. He'd climbed up there a couple of times, after they'd cleared a safe-ish path, and always with one of the guard crew as an escort, to inspect the console and poke around it. It was undamaged, but difficult to get to, even with the cleared pathway. He typically spent his time examining the easy one, in the console by the entrance.

"The power cells were only needed to power the eye - the reason they were removed at all was because Minerva discovered Juno had sabotaged this temple," he explained, while Shaun poked at the console in front of him, poring over the damage Abstergo left when they'd tried to remove the power cell. No one was free for an excursion up into the temple at the moment, but this one was fair game. "But the eye doesn't work anymore, it's broken. I can't see why or how, I can't even get close to it, really. It's there, sort of, but unreachable. I can feel where it was, but it feels like even power can't reach it anymore."

Shaun 'hmmm'ed quietly, fingers running along the base of the cell. The fit was so tight that he couldn't even get his fingers to touch where the cell and console touched. "That's well and good and all, but that doesn't actually help us get the cell out of the console," he murmured. "What's powering the temple if not these things?"

"I dunno," Desmond replied. Shaun fought a smile back but only briefly; while it was so good to hear Desmond's voice (and he sounded more and more like himself every day), it was difficult at the same time, because he knew, if Desmond had had his body, Shaun could just look over and see the shrug his voice implied. "It's deep. Really deep. Geothermal, maybe? I bet the information is in the files somewhere, though I don't know where. I can say that it's solid, though. The laptops feel pretty shaky in comparison."

Shaun did laugh a little at that. Desmond was really close, though he didn't know it, to the reason Shaun even wanted one of these shiny little cubes. He needed a power source he could guarantee wouldn't just die on him - and while he couldn't 100% guarantee that was true about these cells, they were still going strong after tens of thousands of years, so maybe he'd put a little trust in them. There were others in the world, of course, and while the Assassins now had two in their possession, they were currently being studied, and Shaun would be hard pressed to explain why he really, really wanted one out here in a cave in a forest in New York, in a temple that already had three of them without just blurting the truth.

And that wouldn't do.

"I wonder if we can figure out exactly what Abstergo tried to get the other one out," he murmured, glancing over towards the entrance of the cave, where the first battery still glowed, still safe in its cradle despite Abstergo's efforts.

Desmond didn't offer anything immediately, and Shaun sighed internally. He couldn't tell anymore, if Desmond was holding anything back. There were so many cues gone, but at the same time, he had a feeling that Desmond was withholding something from him.

"I tried," Desmond offered after a bit, almost long enough for Shaun to say something himself. "When I first woke up and realized there were cameras, I looked for recordings. I didn't find them, but that doesn't mean they aren't there somewhere. Back then, I knew even less about this place than I do now."

Shaun smirked at that. "That's not saying a lot," he muttered, loud enough for Desmond to pick up, and he was rewarded with a laugh.

"Exactly," he said. "But, uh, I don't know if I'd want to see that, anyways," he added.

Shaun almost, _almost_ asked why not, but he realized that if Desmond did find the footage, he'd have to watch Abstergo rifling through his stuff, breaking his hidden blade, and hacking into his own body, performing a perfunctory field autopsy and then taking whatever samples they wanted and then dragging him away. It hadn't been easy for Shaun to watch, and he realized that if he could, he'd like to spare Desmond the experience.

"We'll save it as a last resort," he said, though he was determined to never need that footage. Worse came to worst, they'd just repeat Abstergo's efforts and waste time. Not so bad, really, when the alternative was making Desmond witness that.

"I wish this place came with a manual - even if it was in Isu, I could use it now," he said, and Shaun laughed. "I mean, these things weren't meant to stay in there, they were meant to be moved and used. They weren't like, keys."

Shaun frowned down at it. "I wonder - is it connected to Isu genes, maybe?"

"What, you think I could've gotten it out?"

"Maybe," Shaun replied. "We never bothered trying, after all. We've started testing agents for concentrations of Isu genes, you know," he mentioned, because that was most definitely a decision made based on how useful it was that Desmond had had such a high concentration. Shaun had almost been called to help with tracking bloodlines and lineages, but he'd declined the offer. He did help write a few programs to help, though - he much preferred that his status as a field agent allowed him to travel and do things like this project here. He didn't want to be any more involved in recruitment targeted towards those with special bloodlines, even if he did think it was a good idea to at least inform them that certain parties would be interested in them.

Desmond was quiet for a moment. "Yeah," he said, almost a sigh, "I guess that makes sense." Then he was quiet a bit longer. Shaun hated that he was just stuck with that - silence or no silence, no other cues into what Desmond might be thinking.

"I was one of the first tested," he volunteered after a few moments, fingers gripping around the power cell to try and tug at it. Unsurprisingly, it did not move. "Y'know, see if my amazing intellect or quick wit had anything to do with special genes, but nope, I'm Shaun Hastings, one hundred percent human."

Desmond laughed at that. "Well, obviously," he said, and Shaun smiled.

He pulled his phone out and snapped a few pictures of the marks on the console, both right by the power cell and at the base where Abstergo had tried to remove the whole thing in a last-ditch effort to recover at least something from the temple. He'd make some comparisons and see what he could rule out a little bit later.

For now, however, he had work to do.

"So, translating more of the Isu language, you say?," he offered, brow raised, already heading towards the server room.

Desmond's mock groan followed him.

~

"So, I have an idea," Desmond said the next morning, by way of a greeting. Shaun frowned down at the laptop, then took a slow sip of coffee.

"What?," he asked, when Desmond didn't continue like Shaun had expected.

"For the power cell," he said. "I have an idea. I think I can actually, uh, sort of cut it off? Like, right now, it's still trying to send energy to the Eye. Obviously, it's not working, but the console doesn't know that. I think the system here just cycles the excess energy in with whatever it is that's powering the temple. There's a lot still going on here, by the way. There are living quarters that are pretty nice if you ever want to unearth them, I'm just saying."

"Focus, Desmond," Shaun replied, and though he tried not to smile, he felt his lips twitch and betray him. It was just the idea of nicer accommodations, that's all. Running water, _heated water_ , that would be _so nice_. "The power cell."

"Right, so, the console that holds the cell. It's just like, y'know, a receptacle, not really any program or smarts there. But it _can_ sense if the energy isn't being actively used, so if I cut it off, the console should release the power cell," he said.

Shaun nodded slowly. It made some sort of sense. "Any idea how much power it has left?"

"What?"

Shaun flicked his eyes up to the camera. He knew he wasn't at his best first thing in the morning, but how could _Desmond_ be affected by mornings? He'd said he didn't really sleep anymore. "The cell? How much power does it have left after powering the eye? How fast is it depleting?"

"Oh, uh, it's not like that. It's not a battery. It doesn't... deplete." He said. "It's a power _source_. I looked at the database, and if you want, I could send that to the queue for translation, but it's not like that at all. I don't fully understand how it's made or even what it's made of, but it doesn't degrade, doesn't lose power."

"Desmond, that's impossible," Shaun said, glancing over to Rebecca's workstation, and she nodded at him. She put up two fingers, and Shaun nodded that he understood that she'd be over in a couple of minutes. "That's not how energy works."

"That's what it said," he insisted. "That's why they were needed for the Eye - they had to both provide enough power for the surge, and they had to last until now, tens of thousands of years after they were made. They weren't exactly rare, and while they are tough, a lot of them were lost or destroyed in the Toba catastrophe. I doubt we could figure out how to even tap into them, honestly, much less make them. All I know is, they shouldn't ever run out of juice."

Shaun shook his head. "Oh, we're going to figure out how to tap into one," he said. "Go ahead and queue the information about the power cells to be translated," he added, then paused. While information would be great, hardware would be even better. "Just in case, you don't happen to know of any spare Isu hardware just laying around, do you?"

"Not that I know of, but I haven't exactly looked. Oh, hey," he said, then there was the slight sound of static that sometimes happened when Desmond was doing something but still had the speakers activated. "There's a map, I'll start there."

Shaun wondered why Desmond hadn't exactly asked any questions yet, so far, about Shaun's sudden interest in the power cells. Shaun didn't want to call attention to it by asking, though. He wouldn't mind telling Desmond, he just didn't want to get his hopes up, didn't want to make a promise he had no idea if he could keep. Maybe Desmond had puzzled it out, though, or had decided he didn't want to know. Shaun couldn't find out without asking, and since he didn't want to prompt that conversation, he wasn't going to ask.

Well, if the cells were a bust, there was always cable, but they really should have a way to guarantee that Desmond couldn't just be caught within the wires and trapped or stopped or somehow eliminated that way. Shaun shuddered a little bit at the thought. There was perhaps a chance he could become something like Juno if that happened, seemingly able to move wirelessly between networks and signals, but that wasn't a chance Shaun was willing to take.

He wanted to be able to promise success, or he'd promise nothing at all.


	9. Chapter 9

"Alright Desmond, we're almost ready," Shaun said, standing behind a temporary wooden barrier near the console closest to the Eye, fiddling with something behind the barrier that Desmond couldn't see. He'd figured that this console was the best choice, as it was less likely to affect anything or anyone important if something went catastrophically wrong. Desmond didn't have a problem with the location of the power cell Shaun had chosen, not at all.

He just found some of the other precautions hilarious. He'd told them they were unnecessary, but, well, he also couldn't quite blame them for not fully trusting him. In this, at least, it was both understandable and even logical.

It was the other things they wouldn't trust him with that bothered him more. Like how they wouldn't let him help monitor any of the cameras they had set up outside the temple, or how he'd heard one of the other Assassins that had come to rotate watches and help clear out rubble encourage two others not to talk to or even acknowledge him. He wondered if that was at his father's urging as well. He didn't bother to ask Shaun or Rebecca. They had more important things to do, and honestly, it was a waste of what time he did get to spend with them.

There was one who started talking to him a little more, Gale, and he wasn't too bad. Just, occasionally he'd remember he wasn't talking to a human with a body and the conversation would grow stilted for a little bit until Gale adjusted to the revelation again.

Still, he couldn't _not_ help them, not when it was within his power, so, here he was.

It was only a few moments before Shaun called out again. "Alright, whenever you're ready, Desmond!"

Desmond cut the console off before Shaun had even finished saying his name. It wasn't difficult, and he wasn't sure what exactly Shaun thought he'd need the barrier for, because as Desmond expected, the lights on the console indicating the power flow went dark, and the battery was ejected smoothly, silently. The slight rasp and then glass-like clatter of the battery sliding off the console and falling to the ground was loud in the hush of the brief silence of the temple.

The harsh scoff Shaun let out brought a phantom smile to Desmond's memory. "Is that it?" he sounded disappointed.

"Yes? It's done," Desmond replied, not bothering to hide his amusement.

"Wha-? Really?," Shaun did poke his head around the barrier at that, despite the cut off exclamation from Alice, the Assassin assigned to ‘assist’ Shaun that day, and grinned. "Huh. It's still all lit up and everything." He moved towards the power cell without hesitation, picked it up and turned it this way and that. "It's not even warm," he murmured softly, probably not meant to be heard.

"Yeah," Desmond agreed anyway. "It's lighter than I'd expected, too," he added, because he did remember thinking that, when he'd retrieved the first one. "But definitely tough, hard to damage. I don't think we can make anything like it."

"Oh, definitely not," Shaun agreed. "But, well, if we could just figure out how to tap into it..."

Desmond waited to see if maybe he'd add more, like what plans the Brotherhood might have for such technology, but Shaun didn't continue. Instead, he set the battery aside and inspected the port the power cell had slid into. "Say, what do you think of our chances trying to salvage some of the hardware here?"

"Probably pretty good? I mean, in usable condition? I don't know, you guys are supposed to be good at that kind of thing, right?" He hadn't intended those to be all questions, but it wasn't like he had answers at all. "I found the map, I can probably look for schematics, see if I can find something that will help you disassemble it," he offered.

Shaun visibly brightened at that. "Yes, if possible, usable condition would be great. Schematics would be very helpful, as well. Are you able to get all the cells out?," he asked.

"Don't see why not. You gonna need to go all out for all of them?," he asked, and Shaun started to answer before Alice spoke up.

"Yes," she said firmly, though she managed to look unhappy about it.

Shaun sent a brief frown in her direction. "I suppose we will, then. Maybe tomorrow, I want to look at this thing today," he said, picking up the power cell again.

Desmond laughed. "Why am I not surprised? I'd expect even Rebecca would take a break to poke at it with you, go nuts."

Shaun tilted his nose in the air, a playful haughty look on his face. "We will, Desmond, thank you."

Shaun started right off for the server room at as quick a pace as he could manage through the path they'd made to get to the console in the first place. Desmond couldn't hear what he was saying, but he didn't need to. He knew Shaun was cursing forgetting to bring something to hold the power cell so he could climb a little faster, but he was too careful and too smart to truly rush. (He wouldn't risk damaging his new toy - Desmond had no illusions that, in this moment, Shaun was thinking at all about his own safety.)

It was no longer difficult or dizzying for him to monitor more than one camera, so he had also been 'watching' Rebecca in the server room, sort of idly, and he shifted more of his attention there to wait for Shaun's arrival. Not all of it, and he was glad for it, because Alice, who did not rush to escort Shaun back to the server room, was glaring at his back and then, when Shaun was out of site, at the console. Then she started to disassemble the barrier, but worked in silence and never bothered looking in the direction of the camera he knew she knew was watching her.

Desmond couldn't figure out why she was here. She definitely wasn't enjoying the assignment, she wasn't recuperating and in need of an easy post, and she wasn't simply joining a teammate who was. Desmond didn't have a gut anymore, of course, so he relied on his memory of a gut, and it was telling him that she was frustrated and angry, though he had no idea what for. He tagged the memory for later; he'd study it when he had time.

For now, Shaun was about to return triumphantly to the server room to show off his new toy to Rebecca, and there was no way Desmond was going to miss that.

~

Before he'd helped Shaun acquire the battery, Desmond hadn't exactly thought he'd be fully included on whatever it was needed for - after all, they wouldn't even let him watch cameras for them, which, it was fine. Whatever. But he thought Shaun might let him know whatever research the power cell was for, or what they thought they could do with them, or whatever it was that made the damn things so important.

But Shaun didn't. In fact, Desmond felt more excluded than ever, as Shaun began spending more of his time outside the server room, and even Rebecca - whose project still excluded Desmond; Rebecca, whose movements in the Isu systems could be tracked easier than ever since he had all this free time now - spent less time in the server room after her daily work or whatever was done. She had her headset blocked from him a lot more often, too.

It was hard, harder than he'd ever expected, because he'd been _fine_ before they'd come to the temple. Mostly. He hadn't realized a lot of things yet, but he would have, eventually. Probably. Now, though, the idea of spending what might literally be forever alone was so terrifying it was paralyzing, but back then it had mostly been discovery and wonder. And now...

Now, he felt more alone than before. Maybe it was because he was so easily forgotten, so easily left behind like this; without a body to remind them he was here. Obviously they hadn't actually forgotten him, because they greeted him in the mornings and called out farewells when they left, but the time in between the two had shrunk lately, and, well, what else should he have expected?

Maybe Rebecca was making really good time on her forays through the database. Maybe she was just copying things - she had some of it automated or something, because her programs were active even when she was not present. Maybe they'd just decided to copy things and translate them later; all they really needed was time, and they could translate anywhere at all, without having to sleep on cots, with only a sink to use for cleaning both dishes and themselves, no running water at all, and literally no reason to be here any longer than they had to be.

But even if they couldn't, even if they had to stay to work, they'd finish eventually. With or without Desmond's help, and once they were done, what else was going to happen except that they'd leave? It's not like they would choose this - there was some additional excavation happening here, but they were looking for more things that might prove useful, more devices or cells, or hell, probably artifacts. More things to take _away_. They weren't looking to clear the way to the rooms, for space, for comfort. For staying.

He wondered if Shaun and Rebecca would leave before the others. If, when they left, any others would speak to him at all. Or, if they did, if it would only be to have him help, then leave him here, alone.

They would all leave, eventually, and Desmond forced himself to focus on that, to repeat it over and over, because if this was how awful it was to have them some of the time, well. He'd best be prepared for the hell it would be when he had no one, all of the time.

~

Desmond spent a lot of his newfound free time looking into the temple. Really trying to make sure he could see everything the cameras could possibly give him, in terms of quality or the field of vision, if they had any kind of motion. They didn't, but he was able to figure out how to passively 'watch' them even better than before. He focused on the microphones, tried to figure out a way to wring better amplification from them.

That had its own minor success. If he focused on, well, focusing the sounds from just one microphone, he could pick up fainter sounds than he'd thought. There was one that wasn't too far from the 'bedroom' the Assassins shared that allowed him to pick up conversations at just above normal volume, if he focused and filtered the sounds. He could catch snippets of conversations at normal volume, given the natural rise and fall of most conversations. He couldn't hear anything whispered at all.

He'd started trying to analyze the way Rebecca's headphones communicated with her laptop. Bluetooth, it was, and it was very different from the network in the Isu systems, very different from the cables the duo used to interconnect with the Isu network. He wasn't sure how he could make it work for him yet, but if he could, maybe he could hack into her headset, to hear what it could hear, if it could even hear things while she had it muted or whatever.

He spent more time in the laptop itself, trying to figure out a way to make himself 'fit' in there. It just didn't have enough space for him. Even if he destroyed every other bit of data on there, it would not fit all of _him_. He couldn't explain how he knew this, how it 'felt', but he did know it and feel it, and it terrified him that he was still considering trying to sneak onto one of the two devices before he left, even if it killed him.

That was how awful the prospect of being left here, alone, in the temple was to him. He suddenly understood what had driven the copy of Clay in the animus to ask the impossible question he'd known the answer to before he'd even asked.

This pattern couldn't go on forever, and boy did Desmond know it. When the two weren't in the server room, he was basically doing his best to track them, to eavesdrop on their conversations. It was barely successful; he never got any clues about what they were working on.

He did get a clue when they were nearly finished, however.

It had been a quiet day, really, Shaun had been lost in thought, and hadn't really seemed to notice that Desmond wasn't exactly a chatterbox. Rebecca had simply worked at her station. He'd confirmed that she was indeed just copying swaths of the database at a time, swapping out storage devices to make room for more data. Whether she had translated it or not he couldn't guess, but he took it as confirmation that his role in helping translate the database had been officially relinquished. Shaun barely looked at the program he'd written, even though Desmond had been assisting it a little bit more every day.

The two seemed excited when they left that evening, buzzing with an energy Desmond had last seen when they'd started making progress with the data here, with him.

Shaun let out a triumphant noise and if Desmond could have physically strained the microphones to somehow hear harder, he would have. Rebecca let out a soft whoop herself, and either jumped or fell or something.

"This could really work," she said, and there was a pause before Shaun answered.

"Yes, I believe so. We might be done here." He sounded proud and perhaps a bit relieved, if Desmond were to judge, and even though he couldn't physically recoil from the realization the words produced, he pulled back from the intense focus on eavesdropping.

Once again, he had to grapple with the fact that although he felt anguish right now, he couldn't actually _feel_ the anguish. There was no stomach to drop, no breath to lose. No heartbeat to race or palms to sweat. No eyes to tear up. But he wanted to. God, he wanted to, because this was it, wasn't it?

They were going to leave him. _They were going to leave him._

He knew he hadn't really been paying attention when they entered the room the next morning, had withheld his greeting in a fit of passive aggressive depression, but he didn't realize how bad it was until Rebecca was practically shouting his name, and had been calling to him for some time.

"What?," he asked, and although it felt like his voice should be rusty from emotional turmoil if nothing else, it wasn't. That wasn't something he'd figured out yet, and even if he had, he only realized he'd expected it after he'd already spoken. "Sorry, what?"

Rebecca actually looked a little worried, peering over Shaun's shoulder at his station. "Where were you? We've been calling your name for a few minutes," she said.

"I was thinking," he said. "Sorry, I got distracted. What did you need?"

The two of them shared a look that Desmond couldn't decipher before turning back to the laptop camera. Shaun cleared his throat.

"We have some news," he said, his tone carefully modulated. Desmond could tell.

"Oh?," he asked, trying to remain nonchalant, like he wasn't at all on the verge of whatever happened when the heart he absolutely didn't have broke.

Rebecca glanced at Shaun, and he twitched like he wanted to look at her, but he didn't. Shaun kept his gaze on the camera. "We think we've figured out a way to get you out of here," he said, and his eyes were so full of conviction that Desmond had to take a moment before he parsed the words.

"What?," he asked, absolutely failing at sounding cool anymore. How could he? This wasn't at all what he'd been expecting!

Rebecca grinned then. "It involves the power cell. We think we've built something that can hold you, take you out of here if we could transfer you into it."

"...what?," he asked again, more quietly, because even if he didn't have a heartrate that needed to slow down, he needed a moment to slow down anyway.

Shaun cocked his head. "We haven't told your father. We, ah, weren't going to until we'd already spirited you away, as it were," he said, then winced at his unintended pun. "I didn't want to tell you before, in case we couldn't make it work. We needed to make sure it couldn't lose power. Ever. Just in case."

Desmond was speechless. He was overwhelmed with a wave of gratitude, of fondness, of such intense relief that he couldn't find words to communicate even one of those things, much less all of them.

"Desmond?," Shaun asked, frowning as he glanced down at the text prompt.

"Sorry," Desmond answered, and he could make this sound as choked up as he felt, because while his own voice samples hadn't included that word at all, he hadn't exactly been cool as a cucumber in them. This was both harder and easier - harder because he didn't have the physical cues that resulted in stuttered, broken words, and easier because he knew how they sounded and could reproduce them without having to think about it too much. "I just.. I thought..."

"You thought what?" Rebecca asked, leaning closer.

"I thought you guys were leaving," Desmond answered. _Without me_ , he didn't say, but he didn't have to, judging by the way their faces fell. He felt the urge to swallow, somehow, though of course he couldn't.

"Oh, Desmond," Rebecca breathed, and Shaun sighed.

"I'm sorry," he offered. "I... we have been rather preoccupied with this, haven't we? It wasn't intentional. I just didn't want to get your hopes up in case it doesn't work. I'm still not sure it will, just," he shrugged, "Sure enough to try."

Even without the physical impetus, Desmond couldn't help letting out a relieved laugh. "Don't do it again, I'm serious. Get my hopes up, because having those dashed is better than thinking you were leaving me behind." His tone had started out light, but had gotten all sad again at the end, even though he hadn't actually tried for that effect. The more he spoke, the more natural it sounded, and it was strange to realize that, now, when he had hardly noticed it before.

Rebecca offered a relieved smile of her own before she smacked Shaun on the back of the head. She ignored his affronted ow!, and leaned back. "I promise," she said firmly. "Now, are you ready to try it?"


	10. Chapter 10

Shaun felt like an ass. It wasn't exactly a new feeling, but it rarely actually upset him. He'd honestly thought that keeping the big idea a secret was the better thing to do, but Desmond had sounded so damn _sad._

The worst part, though, was that Desmond had good reason to think they were preparing to abandon him. That wasn't even something he'd considered, and the fact that his actions had encouraged that assumption, well, it was awful.

Still, he wouldn't make that mistake again, if this worked out. Or even if it didn't. For all the time he and Rebecca spent working on this project, they hadn’t actually brought up the possibility of failure.

Shaun had no intention of giving up if this version didn't work, but he also had no intention of leaving Desmond alone here if they never figured out how to get him out of here.

The idea of spending what, eternity, in that device, alone? It was almost unbearable to consider, and yet, that's what Desmond had been afraid would happen to him, that _they were going to do that to him._

Shaun wanted to be hurt that Desmond thought they could even consider doing that to him without a word, but he suspected it had more to do with the fact that William had questioned Desmond's legitimacy than Desmond's opinion of Rebecca and himself.

Still, he couldn't ignore how his actions helped that perception. He would do better now. They both would.

He'd somehow missed both Desmond’s answer to Rebecca's offer, and the short discussion that followed. Rebecca caught his eye and smiled a little.

"Hey," she murmured, "why don't you go grab it?"

Shaun was a little affronted that he'd been designated errand boy, but he got up anyway after sneering playfully at her. She waved him off, attention already fully on Desmond now.

The device was actually pretty unwieldy; while storage solutions had improved exponentially in the last few years, the amount of space they'd calculated was enormous, and the power cell wasn't exactly an efficient size for transportation. It was basically a portable version of a specialized server, with a screen and a miniature keyboard to allow communication with Desmond, and a power source that would last forever. _Allegedly._

Still, he could carry it without too much trouble, and by the time he lugged it to the server room, Rebecca had already set up the wires needed for the transfer.

He set the thing on one of the empty desks, and moved one of the laptops to make room for it.

"We need a name for this thing," he grunted. It honestly didn't look very good, and Shaun hoped Desmond would trust their expertise enough to at least try it out.

Desmond laughed. " _That's_ it?" He didn’t sound impressed, which made sense, sure, but Shaun was a little insulted anyways.

"Like you could do better," he grumbled. "It took a lot of work. We fried a lot of components figuring this out. You're welcome."

"I'll thank you when it works," Desmond replied, still chuckling a bit. He'd been sounding so much more himself lately, more human. On the one hand, it was hard to think about, that he'd never have a body again, never be truly human again. On the other, the transition is what made him trust that this really was Desmond all the more.

Sometimes, he didn't like William very much. If only he were here, if only he would just talk to his son, just _listen_ to him!

Well, they'd just bring Desmond to him, then. He wouldn't be happy with them, and even if he did come to accept that this was Desmond's fate now, how could he be happy with that?

But Shaun was at least going to try. Whatever William decided, Shaun wasn't going to leave Desmond alone.

Desmond was quiet as they hooked up the storage device, though Shaun knew he couldn't see what they were doing, due to the cameras on the laptops not being aligned correctly for that. It honestly didn't take all that long, but Shaun insisted on double checking everything before he stepped back.

"I felt it connect a little while ago," Desmond said, "is something wrong?"

"No," Rebecca laughed, "We were just double checking everything. How's it feel?"

Desmond was silent a moment. "The connection feels solid from here. Are you ready for me to try it?"

Shaun looked at Rebecca only to find her already looking at him. She nodded first, and he took a breath and nodded back.

"All set, go ahead," he said.

"Man, what's with the tone, what am I risking here?" he asked. "It's fine anyways, there's tons of space in here. You want me to bring some of the database in here, cuz there's enough room for a lot of it."

"You're done already?" Shaun asked. "That was fast, are you actually fully inside? Would you feel okay if we disconnected the cables?"

"Yeah," Desmond answered. "It's what we're here for, right? Go ahead."

"Desmond, if we fucked this up, you might not exist anymore," Shaun hissed. "That's what you're risking!"

There was a pause before Desmond spoke again. "That's okay," he said softly.

"What the hell, that's not okay!" Shaun spat, over Rebecca's own wordless objection. "How could you say that?"

"Well, what are my alternatives, Shaun? If this doesn't work, and I survive, I'm stuck here. Maybe one day you'll get me out, but maybe not. I was supposed to die, this is a better shot than I was ever supposed to have!" Desmond didn't sound angry at all, which surprised Shaun. He didn't sound resigned, despite his words. He sounded _grateful_. It kind of made Shaun feel a little sick.

Rebecca answered before he could. "Hey, we just wanna keep you around. We're not going anywhere if this doesn't work. We'll try until we get it right."

"Thanks, guys. It means a lot, it does. But this feels fine, I swear. Go on and disconnect, let's see if it works."

Rebecca shrugged, and moved before Shaun had decided he would. She was careful, but quick. Shaun moved to the little keyboard and started typing.

_We weren't able to get a mic or speakers on here. Thought I should warn you now._

**You dick** , came the immediate response. **I already knew, but dick move, man. Dick move.**

Shaun laughed, relieved. Desmond really was alright in there.

_Gotta keep you on your toes somehow_ , he replied, but regretted it immediately. Way to go, remind him he doesn't have a body anymore.

**:P**

Shaun laughed again. Desmond was fine, he really was.

And they'd done it. They were going to get him out of the temple. They were going to take him home.

~

Though the first test was successful, there was still a lot of work to be done before they were ready to leave the temple. Desmond moved back to the Isu servers after they plugged it back in, because it was undeniably easier for him to communicate in there.

Shaun abandoned any pretense at having Desmond help translate the database, though apparently Desmond was still helping with that, and let Rebecca focus on copying the rest of the information they had access to. Shaun moved his tools into the server room, worked on improving the storage device. Rebecca wanted to call it Baby 3.0, but both Desmond and Shaun objected.

Shaun favored calling it Desmond 2.0, and Desmond refused to voice an opinion on that option, but he'd at least sounded almost like he'd have been smiling when he said it.

So, Shaun was focusing on improving Desmond 2.0, mainly for function first, with a microphone and speakers at the top of the list. He'd improve the look of it when he had access to better parts, but most important would be durability.

They weren't hiding their actions from Desmond anymore, which even Shaun could tell Desmond appreciated. He chatted with them, and ended up helping Rebecca more than she had expected. He admitted that he could, in fact, track her exploration of the Isu information, and had even added that he could restrict data from her, though he didn't know if she'd be able to tell.

So now they were working on a clone of that program for Desmond to play around with. (William would be furious, but blah blah blah if Desmond wasn't who he said he was, why would he volunteer the ways in which he could sabotage their work?) Desmond had gotten a lot better at many of the things he'd struggled with in the beginning. He'd also told them he'd figured out that he could interact with the Bluetooth signals, but that they terrified him. He felt like he had no idea if he could stay in one piece without hardware to provide boundaries.

Shaun could imagine what that must feel like. It sounded terrifying.

They weren't going to make him try it just to see if he could. Hell, they'd make it near impossible, if they could.

Desmond wasn't just sitting idle while they worked, though. He'd requested a laptop to mess around with, one they didn't need. Shaun would check it every now and again, see what Desmond was up to, and it looked mostly like he was learning programs. How to make them, how to use them. Mostly, he played around in there when he was bored, it seemed. Shaun was all too happy to leave him to it, honestly. Desmond shouldn't have to rely on them for everything.

However, he did keep his word, and helped with the extraction of the other power cells that remained in the temple, which were confiscated by the other team immediately. Shaun didn't even try to object, since he'd been able to keep the only one he needed.

Desmond also found as much as he could about the temple, maps and schematics and other information that he sent to Shaun's laptop, already mostly translated. Shaun passed that information on to Gale, the only Assassin here who'd even acknowledged Desmond in the slightest.

Shaun was almost certain William had a hand in the strained silence whenever Desmond spoke or even came up. Desmond hadn't said anything about it, so Shaun hadn't either, but he couldn't imagine it felt great to be so obviously ignored. Soon enough, though, it wouldn't really matter; they were getting Desmond out of there.

Shaun wasn't exactly anticipating what came next, but he was definitely looking forward to finally leaving the temple. Despite this experience being a better one than the last time he was here, he couldn't leave it for good fast enough.


	11. Chapter 11

It took a couple of weeks for Rebecca's program to finally finish copying all the data Desmond could see. In that time, they'd confirmed that Desmond _could_ block them from seeing whatever he wished, at least, within the Isu systems. That led to them trying to figure out how he could go undetected passively in their own laptops, able to sneak through their modified software like a ghost. They hadn't quite figured out how he could evade active detection by the time Rebecca packed away her equipment.

In that time, Shaun had modified the "Desmond 2.0" device to include crude speakers and an even cruder microphone. When he'd asked Desmond how it was, Desmond had paused.

"This is not the final version, right?" he asked. Shaun looked pained for half a second before he went straight to insulted.

"Of course not! It's the best I could do with scavenged hardware we had lying around in the cave, but if you'd like to wait a couple of weeks so I can ship delicate, expensive components of sufficient quality to please his majesty, I can start on that right away, your Highness."

Despite himself, Desmond laughed. The rush of fondness that accompanied it no longer felt so unfamiliar to him, but neither was the wave of sadness that always followed. "Just making sure," he replied. Despite the quality, everything worked fine, though Desmond would still have been ecstatic to leave the temple in the more primitive version.

Shaun visibly relented, but his smirk confirmed that he hadn't been serious.

"Seriously," Desmond added, "Thank you. I really do appreciate it. I'd have been happy to leave even without these upgrades."

Shaun looked torn for a moment, and Desmond, well, he couldn't frown anymore, but the impulse was still there. "It wasn't only for your benefit," he said after a moment. "I mean it was, but not only in the way you're thinking."

Desmond waited for more information, but Shaun just stood there looking uncomfortable. "Go on," he finally prompted, and Shaun let out an explosive sigh.

"It's for your father. We have to take you to him first." Shaun usually had no problem looking at the camera, but now he kept looking everywhere but.

Desmond didn't need more elaboration. They'd told him his father's opinions on him, how he'd all but forbidden further discussion about Desmond, real or digital. They'd told him he refused to even entertain the idea that he was real. Desmond knew what Shaun was really saying, though.

He was admitting that he felt there was a chance that William might be right about Desmond. Despite the fact that Shaun clearly expected him to be upset, or hurt, Desmond wasn't.

He was relieved, a little. And he admired Shaun's dedication to the Brotherhood, that he wouldn't risk them even if he felt he was right. Shaun's doubt was both expected and refreshing, because he'd accepted Desmond so easily that it had worried Desmond a little, though he hadn't dared voice his own doubts about himself yet.

Maybe it was time to.

~

Rebecca had floated the idea of a little ceremony for Desmond's final transfer from the Isu temple to Desmond 2.0, but Desmond had refused. He was only too happy to see the last of the place, honestly, and he wasn't sure she'd even been serious in the first place.

Desmond hadn't anticipated the concerns about transportation though. Desmond 2.0 was not easy to carry, and both Shaun and Rebecca wanted to be extremely careful with it now that Desmond was in there permanently. Until they had a truly permanent home for him, whatever that ended up being, they didn't want to risk any damage.

Which, Desmond would normally be super grateful for, but right now it meant he was being transported in a box, which was somehow terribly familiar.

He couldn't see anything, obviously, as it was too dark inside the box, but he couldn't hear anything from outside the box, either. He reminded himself that he'd have been happy if his new "body" hadn't had cameras or a microphone, but it was more jarring than he'd anticipated.

He'd learned how to keep accurate track of time while he was filling time when Shaun and Rebecca were busy, and they hadn't put any data in with him, so not only did he not have anything to busy himself with, he knew exactly how long he spent not being busy.

He tried, instead, to imagine the reception from his father when they met up. He expected rejection, of course, but despite everything, he hoped it was temporary.

He hoped his father would listen to him. Only, the history between them didn't really support any hope for that theory.

So he tried to think of ways he could prove himself, ways to show he was still who he'd been before. That he was still human.

It wasn't any more illuminating than his first forays into the subject. He couldn't come up with anything that Abstergo couldn't have gotten from his DNA, before or after his death.

He didn't know that his father would even let him try in the first place. He had both Rebecca and Shaun advocating for him this time, but what if he only discredited them in his dad's eyes instead?

What if William decided he couldn't trust _them_ anymore?

That was worse than him simply rejecting Desmond, by far.

He knew he'd volunteer for just about anything they suggested to prove himself. He'd come to accept that he couldn't actually imagine success, but he couldn't bring himself to accept how likely failure was. Or, more truthfully, what might happen after.

What if William demanded his death, however that would happen? Desmond didn't want to die, not really. Only against the prospect of thousands of years alone made him consider it, and even then, it hadn't been an easy conclusion to reach.

He didn't think Shaun or Rebecca would let William just end him, though. Not without a fight.

He just didn't want it to come to that. He supposed that meant he'd drawn his line, but the idea still scared the shit out of him.

He hated this. He hated that he couldn't trust his father, couldn't anticipate his reaction. He hated contemplating the ruin of his friends, hated even more the prospect of his own death, and thinking of how likely or not it might be. He decided to just count the minutes instead.

~

The trip wasn't as bad as Desmond thought it would have been. Though the first two days had seemed an eternity, Rebecca lifted him out of the box on the second evening with a smile so genuine he knew it hadn't taken two days to reach and speak with his father.

"How long?" he asked before he'd even been set down.

Rebecca shrugged. "We just located him, hang on," she said, then turned and took a breath like she was gonna yell (at an out-of-camera-view Shaun, obviously), but Shaun's voice called out before she could.

"Four to seven days, depending on how quickly we can get across the country," he replied. "You'd have just annoyed him if he'd heard you," he said at Rebecca who grinned back at him. Desmond couldn't see, since she wasn't facing him, but he knew she was all the same.

"Did you tell him?" Desmond asked. He didn't think William would be so eager to see him.

"Of course not," Shaun scoffed, "He wouldn't have told us where he was if I had." Then he seemed to realize how his words sounded, or Rebecca had made a face, either was possible, so he continued. "You know he needs time. We can't spring this on him like this. We should be there to try and minimize the fallout."

"That bad, huh?" Rebecca asked.

"Oh yes," Shaun sighed. "He's going to be furious. That's why we're not telling you where we're going," he pointed at Desmond.

Desmond wanted to protest, he did, but he understood what they were doing, that they were trying to respect William's boundaries as much as they could in a situation like this.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I'm sorry if he doesn't trust you after this."

Rebecca turned to look at him like he'd grown two heads. "What the hell, Desmond, where did that come from?"

Desmond wanted to grimace, but just settled for a sigh that sounded forced to his own ears. Huh. He'd have to work on that. He ignored the urge to clear a throat he no longer had. "I just, he might take it really bad. I don't want to be the reason he no longer trusts you guys. I can't prove myself, not meaningfully, and not in a way I think he would accept. I... I don't really see this ending well for any of us."

Rebecca looked like she wanted to cry a little bit, but Shaun just looked angry.

"This was our decision," he said, stepping closer. " _We_ chose this, you don't get to take that away from us."

"I- I wasn't!" Desmond began, but Shaun shook his head, cut his hand through the air in a negating motion so angrily that Desmond shut up.

"You were," Shaun said, "Maybe not intentionally, but that's what the result would have been. Look, I really think he'll come around, I do." He moved closer to the table Rebecca had put Desmond on (and Desmond just now realized that they were in a motel room) and squatted down to speak with him at camera level. "I wouldn't have done all of this if I didn't believe you, that you _are_ Desmond. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t think William wouldn’t listen, at least eventually. Now, I can't speak for Rebecca," she snorted, "but while we could be wrong here, so can he. He's not infallible, much as he'd like to believe. So if he won't listen, he will be wrong, but we will be fine. We're doing this in the best way we can figure to keep both you and the Brotherhood safe, and he will respect that, if nothing else. "

Desmond felt such fondness and relief in that moment, but without a real outlet, he was simply left speechless.

"Des?" Rebecca asked.

"No, I'm here, just, I wasn't... I just didn't expect this. Thanks. I mean it, really." He knew he couldn't make his voice do what he needed it to right now; he could only hope they understood and believed him.

Rebecca smiled, but Shaun continued to look thoughtful.

"You're welcome," he said after a moment, standing and moving away.

The rest of the evening was spent in discussion; strategic planning of how best to break the news to William. There weren't many suggestions for an emotional approach (none at all from Desmond), but they did try to think up and counter any arguments they could think up.

There wasn't a strong one for proof of Desmond's claim, though. That one boiled down to "just talk to him", which Desmond personally felt was pretty weak. It was all they had, though.

He was touched at how hard his friends were working on this, at how much they clearly cared. He wondered not only how he had missed their now obvious regard, but if he'd ever been the kind of friend to them that deserved it.

He didn't voice those thoughts, not right now. Maybe later, if William believed him, allowed him to stay.

He'd tell them then of these doubts. Tonight, he'd told them how much this meant to him. That would have to be enough for now.

~

Waiting definitely wasn't Desmond's favorite thing to do. Not even in the top 100 things. But he'd done a lot of it recently, and was apparently in for even more.

Shaun and Rebecca were in the next room, William's current office, pitching their argument for Desmond. They'd gone in twenty three minutes ago.

Counting the time continued to be both awful and the best way to keep his negative thoughts at bay, but always the fear of having literally nothing else to do for eternity lingered at the back of his mind.

Nope, nope, time to count the seconds harder.

There were no raised voices coming from the room, and personally, Desmond took that as a bad sign.

The door opened only moments after that thought. Shaun and Rebecca exited the room and shut the door behind them. He could tell by the slope of Rebecca's shoulders, and the stiffness of Shaun's back, that they had failed.

Even though he'd expected this outcome, he still felt the remembered tightness around the eyes that accompanied the very real desire to cry, the constriction of his chest when he choked back a sob. And somehow, the fact that he couldn't do either was, for once, not the worst part of the situation.

Shaun didn't turn to face him at all, but Rebecca did, her face stricken. "Des," she began, then stopped. She took a moment, a deep breath, then shook her head. "He won't... He's not going to see you. But he said we could keep you."

Shaun scoffed. "Like a pet," he sneered. He moved to pick Desmond up, and despite his anger, he was not rough at all with Desmond's "home". (He found he did not prefer to think of it as his body.)

"Shaun," Rebecca said softly, but it wasn't really scolding. "We both know that's not what he thinks."

Shaun didn't say anything as they made their way out of the building. Rebecca sighed, but didn't push.

Desmond was put back in the box again once they got to their rented car, so if they continued the discussion there, he couldn't hear it.

He had no way to sense if he was in motion once he was in the box, but he could tell that they pulled him out immediately once they reached the motel room, because he'd counted the time.

Shaun paced for a few moments before he sat down in one of the chairs next to Desmond's table. He took a deep breath before he finally looked at Desmond.

"I'm sorry," he said, which Desmond hadn't expected. Before he could say anything, Shaun continued. "We tried, we really did. But he.. He doesn't want to acknowledge you could be real. I mean, he didn't say that, he said he refused to even consider it, but... We tried."

"Shaun," Desmond said, as softly as he could. "I don't -"

Shaun cut him off. "Hold up until I'm done. William said he'd let you stay with us, though, with conditions. We can't let you access our network," he murmured. "We can't share sensitive information. We can't... We can't let you speak with anyone else in the Brotherhood." he sounded truly broken up at the end, and it took a moment for Desmond to understand.

His mother, he meant. Desmond wouldn't be able to speak with his mother. It was incredibly touching that they'd even thought to ask.

"It's alright, "Desmond said. He tried to keep his voice level, but couldn't gauge how successful he was. "It really is, I promise. I don't hold you responsible, I knew this was the most likely outcome."

Shaun only looked more upset by that. Rebecca came to stand by him and put her hand on his shoulder.

Desmond continued, because he didn't want things to get more depressing. "And I get to stay with you guys, that's better than I expected! I mean it, it could be worse. I'm okay. I'm okay with this."

Shaun didn't seem happy with that, though. In fact, he got angry instead. "It is not okay!" he spat, and stood so quickly the chair nearly fell. "How can you be okay with this?"

"It could be a lot worse. If I could choose only one outcome, it would be this. To stay with you guys. I know it'll be a little difficult, but we can get me a new home, something easier to carry around."

Rebecca kind of looked like she wanted to cry.

"And hey, he didn't say anything about Abstergo computers, did he?"

It was mostly a playful suggestion, to try and dispel the sadness hanging over the two of them, but they both looked at him, at one of his cameras, eyes wide. Rebecca appeared confused, and Shaun looked a little tense.

"What do you mean?" Rebecca asked.

"So don't give me any Assassin info. Let me bring Abstergo info to you. I mean, I don't know how to move things with me yet, but I'm sure I could learn."

Shaun was back to upset again and muttered something before rushing out of the room, the door slamming behind him.

Rebecca offered a watery smile, then sat down and took a deep, shaky breath. "What a baby," she offered after a moment. "So you wanna be our digital Assassin, huh? "

"Do you think it's possible?" he asked. He wanted to be useful, yes, but a small part of him wanted to do something so useful, so big, that his dad would have to acknowledge him.

Rebecca's smile grew, wide and mischievous. "Well," she said quietly, "Let's find out."


	12. Chapter 12

For a little while, Rebecca took over the bulk of "handling" Desmond. Shaun felt guilty about it, sure, but he couldn't look her in the eye right now, and could hardly look at Desmond at all.

It wasn't _fair._

William wasn't completely wrong in his arguments against just accepting Desmond blindly, especially where it concerned any Assassin intelligence, and the possibility of this Desmond returning to Abstergo with who knows what intel he'd gathered.

He felt terrible about the whole thing; the doubts William had raised, the entirely reasonable doubts that Shaun hated entertaining but were valid concerns that Shaun couldn't address with certainty! He hated that he still wanted so badly to believe Desmond, and the possibility that he'd been fooled by some planted program weighed heavily on his heart, because that's what he'd been listening to this whole time.

If only William hadn't looked so tired, so torn about it all. It had been so easy when he hadn't been face to face with the man.

And yet, _and yet_ , he still truly believed that it was Desmond who was in that case, that he was their Desmond who had ‘died’ in the temple. But he couldn’t stake the safety of the whole Brotherhood on his own feelings! Worse, Desmond wanted his father to accept him. _Shaun_ wanted William to accept him! And the only way forward was this farce; Shaun wasn’t exactly known for his ability at subterfuge.

Shaun manufactured reasons to be gone from their temporary safehouse. Errands, shop runs, intel drops, all kinds of things that didn't require him, personally. He just needed to do them, so he could at least have a veneer of plausibility to his extremely obvious avoidance of his friends.

He ran out of excuses when it was time for them to move. They couldn't tell Desmond where to, which yes, Shaun hated the necessity of, but it was Rebecca's own distaste for the situation that made it almost unbearable. Still, they couldn't risk Desmond in any airline luggage systems, so they'd have to travel by car anyway.

It was a tense few days. Desmond didn't really ask any questions. He didn't engage Shaun much at all after his first few attempts. He'd definitely gotten better at _sounding_ human, and the fact that Shaun could tell he'd italicized that word in his brain only made him hate everything all the more. The situation, William, himself...

He didn't know what Rebecca told Desmond, if she told him anything. He didn't want her to have to make excuses for him, but knowing her, she did anyway.

Desmond was quiet a lot more often, now. Or at least, he was when Shaun was around. And Shaun didn't have the nerve to ask Rebecca about it, if he said anything while Shaun was away, if he said anything about Shaun himself. It was the worst, the whole thing was just the worst. But he had to be sure. If... _If_ Desmond were some kind of Abstergo plant, and Shaun's stupid, soft-hearted belief in Desmond's personhood or whatever let him into Assassin systems, there was no telling what kind of damage he could do. What information he could pass back to Abstergo.

He couldn't believe William was allowing Rebecca to move forward with her stupid plan. Test him, he said; just let him go back to Abstergo, and see what happens! And the fact that Desmond had all but suggested it _himself_ , moments after they'd tried to get the Mentor of the Brotherhood to agree to see him? It didn't help his case, and only gave Shaun’s doubts a louder voice. One that sounded a lot like William.

Shaun had had to admit that since Desmond hadn't had any access to any Assassin information, except what they'd learned from the Isu database in his presence, and small details about past missions, this test did make sense from an outside perspective. If they could find out right now if Desmond was some kind of plant, they'd lose very little.

Well, very little in terms of the Brotherhood itself. Shaun refused to think of any personal costs unless William was proven right.

He knew his distance was creating problems, but he didn't know how to fix it. Not really. They couldn't just tell Desmond this was all one big test for him to prove his loyalty, of course, since that would invalidate the whole bloody exercise.

Rebecca handled it with far more grace, but she'd always been better at that kind of stuff, even if most people thought otherwise. She spent more time around Desmond than Shaun at this point, and he didn't really blame her.

This would all be over eventually, sure, but he honestly wasn't sure he could last that long.

~

Shaun knew it was a waiting game, really. Desmond thawed a bit towards him, but Shaun didn't relax his guard. He couldn't, not yet. The cost was too fucking high, and William said...

Well, William had said a lot of things. William had said he'd been an idiot. Rebecca, of course, leapt to his defense, but in truth, William wasn't wrong, and Shaun had said so.

That hadn't gone down well.

Thing is, Shaun didn't approve much of William's relationship with Desmond. He was, in all honesty, kind of a crap father. But he was a brilliant Mentor, and Shaun had held nothing but respect for him in that regard.

He hated having disappointed the man, even if he still thought William was wrong. But the possibility that he was right was too large to ignore.

After Desmond had stopped trying so hard to exclude Shaun from things (and, well, with only three people in the group, it had been obvious), Rebecca started to make overtures again, to try and suss out why he was being such a dick about things.

Took him to a little cafe and everything, to try and sneak his feelings out of him or whatever it was she thought she was doing, even though it had not worked even once in the years they'd known each other.

Besides, she already knew the answers she wanted anyway, she just wanted him to _talk_ about it, and he couldn't imagine anything he'd like less than that, honestly. He told her so, but she just looked at him all disappointed again.

Well, she could just join the club, couldn't she? He hated disappointing her, but she already knew everything anyway, including how this little game of hers would end up. Talking about it would solve nothing. It wouldn't even make him feel better!

He knew she was working with Desmond on digital infiltration, though he didn't request any updates on Desmond's progress. It didn't escape him that everything Desmond learned now could possibly be used against the Assassins later. The implications were beyond measure - and he'd said so, back in that damn meeting. Rebecca had looked at him with such betrayal in her eyes, like he'd never seen before. Like she didn't even know him in that moment.

But William had still agreed to let them try. Shaun supposed he expected them to figure out defenses against whatever it was Desmond ended up learning, but Shaun honestly didn't know what that was. He was against this whole plan, but he trusted Rebecca to know what she was doing.

He did trust her; that if worse came to worst, she would do what needed to be done. Once, if Desmond was truly gone the way William feared, they'd go over what he'd learned -- and in the meantime, he'd share his own backup plans as well. If Rebecca was still speaking to him by that time.

He knew they were making successes, Rebecca was far too excited for them not to be, but she'd stopped bringing him any updates. She emailed them to William and cc'd Shaun her nightly reports.

Shaun filed them, but did not read them. He'd do it later, just like he’d deal with everything else.

He was putting off too much, and getting nothing done, but honestly, he had nothing to do right now, either.

He knew he couldn't stay like this. He needed something that would get him away for a couple of weeks, maybe, while Rebecca finished her little infiltration boot camp with Desmond.

He didn't really want to go into the field, not without Rebecca and _especially_ not while Rebecca was angry at him, but nothing else would be important enough to pull him from his team at a time like this.

It was time to call in a favor.


	13. Chapter 13

Shaun left that afternoon. A mission, he said. And while he didn't exactly seem happy, he certainly didn't waste any time lingering after his announcement.

Rebecca was pissed. "He arranged this," she spat. "Ugh, he's such a fucking dumbass sometimes!"

"Has he talked to you?" Desmond asked her. He hadn't seen them talking much, honestly, but they weren't always in the room with him.

"No," she growled. "He's been avoiding me as much as you. Honestly, he probably asked Galina for a favor, to allow him to tag along in one of her missions."

"Galina?"

"Russian Assassin. Trained in her mother's version of the Animus. Her mother forced the whole Russian Brotherhood into them, and Galina had to request help to put them all down after they all succumbed to the most severe bleeding effect I've ever heard of. "

"Shit." He'd experienced the Bleeding Effect first hand, had seen how it affected Clay, even Daniel. He couldn't imagine having to put his own family down, the whole Farm...

"Yeah," she sighed, then took a deep breath, "anyways, she basically babysat our first few field missions. They're close now," she shrugged. "Close enough for a favor like this for sure. She's one of our best, and takes on some of our toughest jobs."

"Oh," Desmond murmured. On the one hand, he definitely worried about Shaun on any of their ‘toughest jobs’. He knew Shaun was trained, knew he'd completed many field missions already. He knew that so far, Shaun hadn't even been seriously wounded yet; of the two of them, Rebecca had been shot, but she _had_ taken the bullet for Shaun, a point they bickered about frequently. Or, they had, anyway.

But a tiny part of him worried for Shaun's safety anyways. An even tinier part wondered at the friendship Rebecca mentioned. He was already trying not to pay attention to his stupid whatever-it-was for Shaun (he refused to even acknowledge basic attraction, much less anything like a crush, or worse, _feelings_ ), but jealousy was so far beyond pointless Desmond didn't even know a word for it, for more reasons than he cared to count.

At least this was better than the temple. It was. This would pass. It had to.

Rebecca, of course, had little clue to the full scope of what troubled him about her revelation. "Don't worry, she'll take care of him. She really is one of our best, and Shaun isn't too bad himself."

Desmond forced a laugh. "I'll take your word for it. Well, let's get to work. I want to see his face when he gets back, and I'm awesome at this!" It was harder to fake cheer now that emoting with what was still only a simulation of his voice had become so natural, but he'd apparently not done too bad if Rebecca's grin was anything to go by. He was glad, if only because he knew Shaun probably wouldn't even listen to this update on Desmond's progress, like the others, and he didn't want Rebecca to be bummed because Shaun decided he'd rather have the stick up his ass than friends.

"Yeah! One more time, let's see what you can do."

~

Progress didn't happen as quickly as Desmond liked. He didn't exactly think he'd get everything on the first try or anything, but there was simply much more to learn than he'd thought, and even when he succeeded, he couldn't always see _why._

Rebecca was actually a pretty great teacher, and had a lot more patience for him than he'd have expected.

But he did learn; more and more about the nature of data, how to move inside computer systems, and how to remove data and take it with him, and how to do all of this without detection. He learned how to copy data instead, and more importantly, at least in Desmond's eyes, how to manipulate it to be useless to Abstergo.

She wanted to teach him wireless transfer, but admitted they didn't have the equipment for it.

_After you get better_ , she promised, but he wasn't exactly in a rush. The confines of the case, of cables and closed systems, were at least safe and known. The Isu system had been huge, but still had boundaries. He couldn't imagine what it would be like without those, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

But the training, it was fun, and by the time she had him running trials on some cloned Abstergo systems, he genuinely got the same kind of rush as climbing that skyscraper had been.

He tried not to think of the things that were missing; the racing heartbeat, labored breaths, stinging palms. Endorphins. That way lay madness.

He asked about Shaun a couple of times, but Rebecca never had much information to give.

"He's still alive," was the most common update.

"He really is avoiding us, isn't he? What is his problem?"

"I'm not really sure," Rebecca said with a shrug. "He's been a real sorry asshole, that's all I know, and I'm gonna kick his ass when he gets back."

Desmond laughed. "What if he's injured?"

"Then I'll kick it harder," she growled.

"It'll work out, Becca," Desmond said softly. "We both know that it's me he's really avoiding. He can't avoid you forever."

Rebecca sighed. "He's doing a great job of it right now."

There was silence for a few moments, before Desmond tried a sigh that didn't sound too bad, he thought.

"I'd pat your shoulder if I could," he offered, and she laughed.

"I wish it wasn't like this, Desmond."

He did too, but it wasn't really worth saying at this point. "He is coming back, right?"

"Of course he is!" Rebecca's reply was immediate, but after a second, she looked less certain. Then she shook her head, "No, he is."

"I," Desmond began, but he didn't really want to put his misery on Rebecca's shoulders. "Nevermind."

"Des, come on. I don't want you to think you have to keep things from me."

"It's just, I didn't want it to be like this. I get that I'm kind of a problem right now, but... I don't want to be something that comes between you two."

Rebecca smiled at him, small and sad. "Oh, no Des, this is on him. I'm glad you're here, even if Shaun is being a right ass about stuff right now."

Desmond laughed, and though he hadn't expected to, he felt a little better at her words. Rebecca was awesome like that.

"Alright," he said, because he could tell she meant it. Whatever Shaun's damage, she was the one who was here right now. "You'll make him talk, though, when he gets back?" he asked.

"You know it," she said. "C'mon, back to work. Let's make sure we have something to talk about."

~

Desmond was nervous. He'd had weeks of Rebecca's training, or "boot camp", as he'd come to call it, and she was good, but this was a real infiltration, and for all intents and purposes, he'd be truly on his own.

After he'd proven capable of infiltration, she'd shifted the focus of his exercises to escape. No matter his performance, he'd always need to be able to leave. She drilled and pushed until he could get out of her systems in, well, not his sleep because he didn't really do that anymore, but in a blind panic, even in systems unfamiliar to him.

Although they couldn't simulate perfect panic, they were still reasonably confident in his ability to get out, at least.

After that, they covered actual manipulation of data, and testing everything he could do, then combined all the previous exercises for a series of dry runs that put everything he'd learned into practice.

By the time Shaun returned, Desmond had already beaten three of Rebecca's tests, and they were ready to go out and actually wreak some real havoc on Abstergo's systems.

Today wasn't about sabotage, though, only acquisition. _And_ to test his ability to remain undetected. Even though he was confident, there was still a little bit of worry; his limitations of a wired system meant the other two had to remain on-site. He couldn't forget, even for a second, that if he fucked things up in there, they might be the ones that get hurt.

And maybe the fact that Shaun was going with them factored into that anxiety, but not, like, that much.

Maybe.

Shit.

Even though he was still mad, Desmond had _missed_ Shaun. He seemed no worse for the wear after his mission (missions? Desmond didn't know, because of course Shaun couldn't say). But Desmond said nothing about it. Shaun said nothing. Nobody was saying anything.

There was definitely a tension between Rebecca and Shaun that Desmond knew wasn't just in his head. He couldn't say so now, but he hoped Rebecca made Shaun talk while they waited for him to return.

Rebecca finally broke the silence. "Okay, Des, final rundown. We're going to get inside and hook you in. As soon as you feel the connection, it's go time!"

Desmond 'hmm'ed the noise he'd taken to using in place of a nod. "Then I sneak around, grab anything interesting, and get out. Make sure to toggle the green light on the case when I return. No more than 15 minutes."

"You got it," she grinned. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be, I guess," he said, then realized he hadn't even considered how they were getting him access to the systems in the first place. "Are all your plans this vague? How are you going to hook me in?"

"We are Abstergo Data Security employees delivering a security upgrade," she said, glancing over at Shaun, who grunted, then nodded when she didn't continue. "You will be in the travel case, and when we're there, we'll head on into the database room. You'll probably notice the other data going in with you - it's a modified version of Abstergo’s latest security update. It's even mostly legitimate, but it includes a few things Abstergo definitely would not consider secure!"

"Considering the number of backdoors we're leaving ourselves, I'd say not," Shaun added dryly, like he couldn't help himself. His frown grew even frownier afterward, like he'd only just realized he'd spoken out loud.

Rebecca only laughed, and Desmond joined in, because in spite of Shaun's attitude, it felt like the first genuine moment for them in a long time.

"Anyways, we're good. Got our credentials, uniforms, and everything. You're actually traveling with two Abstergo Data Security Specialists right now," Rebecca said and Shaun snorted. "Well, it's a damn sight better than being a barista!" She retorted, and Shaun's laughter turned into a cough.

"Barista?" Desmond asked.

"Tell you when you get back," Rebecca promised. "It's a really great story, and I've got pictures!"

Shaun only huffed a little, at that, his frown relenting only slightly. "It's time to get him set up," he said after a moment.

"Yeah, yeah," Rebecca replied, but she was already reaching to connect the cables from the case to his home.

Once the connection was secure, he went to the travel case. He didn't like it, since it had no cameras, no microphones, no interface with the outside world, though it had been modified to hold him, at least. There was a tiny part of him that wondered if they were being honest about this mission (Shaun in particular, let's be real), but he trusted them. He had to; they were his friends. The alternative was so awful he didn't want to even think about it, but a tiny, tiny part of him feared that this was all some sort of setup and that Shaun's dickish behavior was because they'd decided they weren't keeping him, or that he wasn't 'real'.

He was real enough for himself. Anything else wasn't worth contemplating.

He shook off those dark thoughts; they didn't help anyone. He wished he could feel if they were moving yet, he'd really like to be doing something besides brood right now.

Despite his wish, it was nearly twenty minutes before he felt the connection open and the data and programs that were with him in the travel case started moving.

It was almost too easy to just go along with it, to slide in and around the shell the data provided. He'd looked around it while he'd waited, and it appeared to include a lot of monitoring programs - Desmond could definitely see why Abstergo would not approve of all of their additions.

Once inside, he started his countdown. This, at least, had proven to be something he could do without thinking about it, which he was grateful for. If he had to focus on timekeeping, he had no idea how effective he would be, especially in a system as massive as this.

It was enormous compared to his home. It didn't hold as much data as the temple had, but the temple was a serene lake compared to this whirlpool of activity.

For a moment, Desmond was paralyzed. There was so much going on, he didn't know where to start. That lasted all of a second before he moved, started with a methodical look over the structure of the system, how they cataloged their work.

He started with maps, but that apparently wasn't a focus at this facility. Still, they might be worth something. It took some minutes before he found their active projects, and most of it was fairly unremarkable. Some he'd known about before his death (and it was kind of funny how they were still working in them all these years later), but the information here was current, and might hold some value. There was a lot of programming stuff done here, he noticed, much of it on how to capture data from people's phones, how to compile that into useful profiles for the individuals they belonged to.

There were a few A.I. projects here, too. Alternatives to Siri, it looked like. Another was a program that could predict disasters, or crime. He copied those, certain this was what they were after.

Then he noticed a project that wasn't high priority, but had been earmarked for review soon, about injecting chemicals into certain communities' water supplies.

He snagged that only because he thought it might make Shaun smile. He wasn't hoping it would thaw whatever wall Shaun had put up or anything like that, he just genuinely thought Shaun would enjoy it.

It wasn't too long after that his internal alarm said it was time to get back. He double checked that he hadn't left a trace, and toggled the green light once he was "in".

Then it was time to wait again.


	14. Chapter 14

"I really hope you're going to apologize," Rebecca growled once she confirmed Desmond's transfer to the security case was complete.

Shaun hesitated, not because he believed he shouldn't have to, but because he hated apologizing, _especially_ when he knew he had to. "I will," he agreed, finally, and he really, really hoped he got the chance to. He didn't specify when, though he knew Rebecca meant that he should right when Desmond got back. William wanted to wait months before he'd truly consider Desmond's legitimacy, and that... Shaun wouldn't apologize twice for the same thing, especially if he had to keep doing it after his apology. Maybe he'd just apologize for being a dick about it.

He was going to have to apologize about the deception later. He wasn't sure there was an apology big enough, but he had to do this the way William wanted - not just for William, but for Desmond. He just hoped Desmond would understand, even if he never forgave them.

It was the only way to legitimize Desmond in the eyes of the whole Brotherhood, after all, not just his father.

He was grateful Rebecca was such a great actress. There was no anger or tension at all when they left the van. She charmed their way in, chatting amiably with the guard escorting them. He honestly couldn't believe they were doing this again, even if the risk was low. They were very far away from Montreal, after all.

Soon she had the case hooked up, and talked sports with the guard while Shaun watched the progress of the installation on the screen. Of course, they were also tailing Desmond on his progress, but what they could track seemed normal enough. He seemed to be wandering around, though with a sort of purpose. There was nothing mechanical in his movements. Shaun had taken a crash course in ai programming while he was away, and how many programs were 'taught' to mimic humans.

Desmond showed none of the markers Shaun had memorized in his behavior. But Abstergo's systems weren't detecting him at all, which was great news. If Rebecca hadn't been the one to train him and gather the data of his progress, he wasn't sure if they would be able to detect him, either.

It felt like forever just watching the status screens before the green light blinked on and remained steady. The guard never even glanced at him or his work, so engrossed was he in talking (or trash-talking) sports worth Rebecca.

Shaun confirmed all their other programs installed properly, then nodded and disconnected the case. "All set," he said in his best 'American from indeterminate region' accent, and hoped his smile indicated the correct amount of professional happiness at a job well done.

Christ, he hated this kind of infiltration. In some ways, the barista job had been better, easier. Sure, he'd been in Abstergo's grasp the whole time, but he'd been able to be himself, more or less. No one expected the barista to be happy, especially not a British one. And though even he had known his coffee was shit, they'd never once sought to correct him. He was pretty certain he’d been an office meme somehow.

Rebecca grinned. "Aw," she drawled, and winked at the guard, who raised his brows and smiled back at her. "It's been great chatting with you, Greg," she said, sounding so genuinely regretful that Shaun knew it was at least a little bit true. "Looks like we gotta get going. Hopefully I'll see you next time there's an important upgrade."

"Yeah," the guard, Greg, replied. "In three months then."

Rebecca laughed like it was an old joke, and even Shaun knew his cue to chuckle along.

There was meaningless small talk on the way back to the lobby, then friendly goodbyes before they made their good through the parking lot to their van. Every time, Shaun was impressed at how well Rebecca's natural charm greased the wheels for missions like this. He rarely said so, obviously; she was already unbearably smug about it, grinning widely at him as he pulled out of the lot and made his way towards the highway. He didn't even need to look to know.

"How'd it look?" she asked, when she finally accepted that Shaun wasn't going to break first.

"Good, actually. No sign of detection, and it seemed a pretty thorough comb of the data."

Rebecca hit his shoulder, hard. "Ow!" he cried.

"That's not what I meant and you know it! How'd he do?"

"Fine," he replied with a sigh. "Organic patterns, no sign of any attempt to seek contact or leave any files behind."

Rebecca leaned back in her seat, grinning again. "I knew it!"

"Yes well, we've still got another few months of observation before we can clear him," he grumbled.

"Not this shit again, Shaun, you can't -"

"We can, and we will," he said, and only just stopped the deep sigh that sat heavy in his chest. "This was good enough for me. I'm sold. I can't go through this doubt again, and... If it's not really him, it's... he's good enough for me. But William won't budge on this alone. He thinks we're compromised, and here's the thing, Rebecca: _we are._ But... Desmond wants his father to accept him, Becca, and this is what it will take."

She took a breath, like she was going to fight him on it, then deflated with a sigh of her own.

"You're not going to keep being such a massive shit about this, are you?"

Shaun didn't reply immediately, and Rebecca didn't push for an immediate answer. He really should remind her sometime soon how grateful he was for her, especially when she did shit like this, proved that she really did get him.

"Only as much as I have to be," he answered finally. He saw Rebecca incline her head in his direction out of the corner of his eye.

"Fine," she said, letting out a dramatic sigh. "You're such a baby sometimes, I swear," she muttered immediately after, just loud enough that he knew she meant him to hear.

Ah yes, that was why he didn't go around singing her praises; she was such a little shit herself.

Still, he'd do something thoughtful soon. That was the best way, honestly.

"Thankfully, your immaturity has landed you here in the nursery with me," he shot back, and she laughed, hit him in the shoulder again, though much more gently this time.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, and turned to look at the case strapped into the back seat. "I can't wait to see what he got for us. Ooh, and your face when you apologize!"

Shaun grumbled. "Not much different from the face I'm making now, I'd bet."

"Can I record it?" she asked.

"What? No! Why would you even ask that?"

"I hope Desmond does," she muttered, settling back into her seat properly. "Oh, hey, are we there yet?"

Shaun just groaned.

~

Rebecca chided him, but Shaun followed all the proper procedures on the way home, to try and detect and shake any potential tails. Neither of them caught anyone following them, but that didn't mean the procedures weren't worth following, yes, _every time, Rebecca!_

He knew she wasn't serious, just working off her weird post-mission high, but he'd die before admitting he'd worry if she didn't pull this kind of shit.

Still, it meant he was tired when they got back. Hours of being on edge like that took their toll. He lugged in the case Desmond was currently in, while Rebecca took in his 'home'.

She started hooking him up immediately, Shaun watched, because it was really a one-person job, and wished he could tell when Desmond was really 'home'.

"What, did you take the long way home?" he asked, and Rebecca laughed.

"The extra long way," she agreed, because that was, apparently, the game they were playing now. But she was too eager to play any further because she immediately bounced in her seat a couple of times. "What did you bring us?"

Desmond laughed himself, and it was - it sounded just like he was there, just like Shaun could close his eyes, and reach out, and touch the man Desmond had been, the... The man he no longer was. Shaun hadn't heard that sound in a while, and he hadn't realised he'd missed it so much. Oh. Oh, _shit._

There wasn't any time for revelations, though, because Desmond was talking about dumb stuff like Abstergo's plans for world domination or whatever, and Shaun was just staring at the stupid case Desmond lived in and realising just how much shit he'd let himself fall into, all without realising.

He snapped out of it when he heard his name, and found Rebecca watching him with confusion at first, then pity, which she schooled out of her face before she turned enough that Desmond could see it. Oh, and she'd already hooked him up to the mini-database and they'd already started uploading the data.

"Sorry, I was... thinking," he said. "What did I miss?"

Desmond chuckled again. "I said, I found something you might like. You remember that fluoride business? Well, it's getting a revisit soon. Don't know if it's still fluoride or a new chemical, but there's this plan about local water sources and plants, and engineering a more compliant population."

"What?" he asked, before he could stop himself. Yes, the fact that they were revisiting the plan was interesting, but that wasn't what had Shaun so wrong-footed. Desmond had paid attention to that conversation when they'd first met, when Shaun had both hated Desmond a little bit but had also wanted to impress him.

"It was earmarked for review," Desmond continued, like it had been an actual question, and not Shaun's verbal response to his heart doing stupid things like recognizing feelings he'd had for a while and also breaking. "There's no definite plans for launch, but I think the next step is testing the formula."

"Oh," Shaun said, and he knew that wasn't an intelligent answer, but bloody hell, he was literally incapable of anything else at this moment. "That's... concerning," he finally managed, after Rebecca turned and gave him a look that said he was acting like a crazy person.

"I thought you'd be interested to see that they haven't given up," Desmond said, and now he sounded concerned.

Shaun shook his head; he could have a breakdown later. "I am," he said, much more like himself, "What Abstergo could do with a compliant, ignorant population should horrify everyone. I appreciate it, Desmond, I'll take a look and see if we should pass it along for a follow up."

"Cool," Desmond said, sounding so deliberately smug that Shaun knew was for their benefit, that he'd be smiling right now, if he could.

"Yeah, yeah," he wanted his hand at Desmond. "Listen, I need to go turn in the van for clean up. I'll be back in a few hours."

"Sure thing," Rebecca replied, without even turning to look at him. Originally, she'd been slated to do that job, but clearly she knew he needed time to adjust to... whatever this was. Besides idiocy, obviously.

He snagged the keys and grabbed a change of clothes before he headed back out to the van. He definitely needed the time to plan for how he was going to survive the next few months.

~

For the first twenty minutes of driving, Shaun didn't actually do a lot of reflection. He was just kind of numb, focusing on all the things he’d missed: how this could have happened? Had he felt like this whole time Desmond was alive and had he somehow missed it then?

The answer, depressingly, was yes. And yes.

The last couple of weeks made sense, then. Even when he'd been crawling through a sewer with Galina (a story he'd wanted to tell Desmond, because he knew Desmond would laugh his... He knew Desmond would appreciate it), he'd been focused on what he'd left behind. He wasn't worried about Becca, obviously, but about Desmond, and what if they were wrong and William was right?

He just hadn't looked closely at why he'd been so angry at the possibility; and while normally he'd advocate for avoiding emotional entanglements, he really should have sorted this out before he came back and had to lie to Desmond's, uh, camera for at least a few months more. He hadn't even been able to stay for most of the first one!

The probability of Desmond being a plant, of being only a facsimile of the man he was only now realising he felt things for, was not one he could ignore, though. He couldn't put the whole of the Brotherhood at risk because of his own bleeding heart.

But if this was, somehow, all exactly what William suspected, then Shaun was going to personally raze every Abstergo facility to the ground. They'd already taken so much of Desmond, and to use his memory, his _memories_ , like this?

It was unbearable. Unacceptable. He wouldn't let them get away with it.

He grunted at himself, mostly satisfied with that. Now, if only he had an actual plan for surviving the next few months, that'd be great.

By the time he returned the vehicle, retrieved their new assigned car, and returned to their safe house, he hadn't come up with a plan so much as as a loose set of goals he thought he could manage.

No more emotional outbursts.

No calling up Galina and asking to tag along on one of her missions because he was a big baby who couldn't handle his own emotions.

No avoiding Desmond.

No spending too much time with Desmond.

No speaking of said emotions to anyone, especially Rebecca.

Okay Maybe Rebecca, if he had to, but definitely not Desmond.

Always have an excuse not to talk. A good one.

Those seemed like a good place to start, if nothing else. He could definitely do this.

He could.

Probably.


	15. Chapter 15

The first thing Desmond noticed about Shaun when he returned was how tired he looked. The cleanup must have been brutal, because Shaun looked like he'd been through the wringer.

Shaun did try to engage them, but Rebecca took pity on him and packed him off to bed. Shaun only put up a token protest before trundling off to his room.

The day after, though, he was more himself than he'd been in a while. Or rather, he was back to the man Desmond had known before. Before they met with William and whatever happened in that room had made Shaun want to avoid him like whatever kind of plague a computer-bound entity could possibly transmit to a human with an actual body.

The days that followed were the best he'd had since they'd left the Temple. There was more training. He worked with Rebecca on digital infiltration techniques, and with Shaun on analysis, something he had no background in at all, no experience. Shaun was a great teacher, but...

Desmond wasn't an idiot, despite Shaun's claims to the contrary. He could tell that while Shaun was more relaxed and open than he had been before he left to go get shot at or whatever, that he was still keeping up some sort of barrier around himself.

Desmond hated that Shaun felt he had to protect himself from Desmond. He had no idea what Shaun was so afraid of, but it was painfully clear that, whatever it was, it had to do with him.

He only hoped he could prove himself somehow, that he wasn't whatever Shaun thought he must be.

Rebecca never mentioned Shaun's behavior, and she certainly didn't copy it. He made a point to tell her how much he appreciated that, on an afternoon when Shaun was running errands.

She only laughed, and patted his case fondly. She was working on a new one for him, when she had the time. Sometimes she'd get them both to help; Desmond more for his opinion than any technical aptitude, obviously.

It definitely looked a lot better than his current case at least. Rebecca had dropped him in front of a mirror once, and he'd joked about how his case looked, but maybe she had realized the disappointment that lay underneath his attempt at humor. She'd gotten to work very shortly after that.

She did finish the new case before they went on their next mission, but she said they'd transfer him after, give him time to get used to his new digs before he had to go out again.

He got to see the case, of course, and it looked worlds better than the cobbled together scrap he currently lived in. It had more cameras and microphones, yes, but it also included a gyroscope so he could tell when he was being moved - so he figured there might actually be a need to have an adjustment period.

It did give him something to look forward to, after the mission. He appreciated that.

This next mission was different, because of course Shaun and Rebecca couldn't physically infiltrate every Abstergo campus. They couldn’t infiltrate very many of them at all, actually.

Rebecca was going in alone, though Shaun would be nearby, for assistance with security, and also extraction if there was a need. She was going to sneak up to the building under the cover of darkness (and a manufactured outage in the camera coverage for the compound yard, the best they could manage with the little access they had) and patch Desmond in from as secure a location outside the building as she could manage, which wasn’t nearly as secure as he’d have thought, given she was actually scaling the building in a blind spot not covered by cameras and ‘working her magic’ on the roof, which shouldn’t have any cameras at all.

It was less secure than Desmond would prefer, but both Rebecca and Shaun were confident it would work. His temporary carrying case didn't have any mics or cameras, so he'd be of no help until he was inside. (His new case, he noted, was small enough that it could double as his carrying case for missions like this, if the more obvious cameras were covered.)

There was a final briefing before the mission, because this time Desmond was after a specific piece of information, and anything else was so secondary it would be tertiary, if that were possible.

He paid attention, because this was only his second mission and he did not want to fuck this up. That and, well, Shaun was nice to look at when he was focused like this. Not that he noticed or anything.

It felt like forever before he felt the connection to the Abstergo systems go live, but it truly hadn't been more than an hour since he'd been transferred to the carry case, well within mission parameters. There wasn't an "update" for Abstergo this time, but Desmond was also carrying another load of Spyware for their systems anyway - mostly as an added bonus since they were already physically accessing the systems here; it should keep an eye out for certain keywords and send alerts if those words were used. It deployed alongside him.

The first thing he did was check the cameras, which were clean. No alarms, Rebecca wasn’t visible on any of them; as they said, none of the cameras appeared to cover the rooftop. He had no trouble keeping 'an eye' on the cameras as he started to search the database, though he had no way to alert Rebecca that trouble was in the way. He could probably invent trouble elsewhere if he needed to, though he hoped it didn’t come to that since he wasn’t sure what exactly he would do.

It took some time, because Abstergo wasn't often very straightforward in their naming practices. He knew what the data would contain, but not what their stupid codename was.

It took almost a full twenty minutes before he found what he was after, a proposal for deploying an algorithm that would both track browsing habits online and also allow Abstergo to influence where their traffic ended up, a mixture of invasive spying and illegal redirection to Templar-favored news and other media sites, codenamed Wormhole. He copied the intact data, then carefully altered the files. The proposal that the higher-ups would see was altered only slightly, but the algorithm itself was edited so heavily the creator would likely not recognize it. He also changed the backups he could access as well. It was possible that the creator had a complete backup on a system not connected to the network ("He would if he had any brains at all," Rebecca said), but this would delay them significantly, if nothing else.

And the Assassins would have their code, anyway.

The cameras remained steady, and security never even came close to Rebecca's position at all. He copied a few other files that had seemed interesting when he'd glanced at them during his search for Wormhole, but didn't alter any of those.

Then he planted the seed for the next camera 'blip' and settled back into his case, lighting the alert LED on his case when he returned.

The rest was up to Rebecca and Shaun, until they were finally back at their safe house.

~

He'd almost forgotten about the new case by the time he was actually connected to it. It did actually feel different than the first one, even before he accessed any of the cameras or microphones. He wanted to take some time to learn it better, but he knew his teammates were waiting for a sign that the transfer was successful, so he activated one speaker first.

"I'm in, hang on, I'm checking everything," he said. He wanted to test each piece of equipment individually first, just so he knew 'where' they were, and how to tell them apart quickly, how to keep a virtual eye or ear on all of them and know ‘where’ the source was.

It took only a few minutes, and at the end, he had 8 video feeds and 4 audio feeds to pay attention to. Right now, two of the cameras were dark, presumably because his case was resting on that side.

Rebecca and Shaun, he could see, were sitting at the table, discussing the mission from her perspective.

"Hey," he said, to grab their attention. "Pick me up."

Rebecca grinned, and walked over. She grabbed his case by the handle, which he could actually watch now, and lifted it up. Then she carried him around the room.

He didn't immediately feel anything which did actually make sense, but it also frustrated him. "Keep going," he said, once she'd made a circuit of the room.

It took almost three circuits before he even 'found' the damn gyroscope, but once he did, it took him longer to 'calibrate' the sensations. However, once he did, he definitely appreciated how sensitive the instrument was. He had her twist and turn him all over, until he was certain he could interpret the data in his sleep.

"This was a good idea," he said, after he had her put him down again.

She grinned at him and shot Shaun a smug look.

Satisfied, he let them debrief him and uploaded what he'd found to their laptop, while he talked about what else he'd seen.

Shaun was immediately absorbed in the Wormhole data, already in the zone of taking notes, and paying no attention to anything else. He seemed both outraged and excited, and that alone almost made the whole thing worth it. 

Rebecca looked over the other stuff he'd copied, made tutting noises and frowny faces at Abstergo's plans, and eventually they were both bored long before Shaun showed any signs of flagging.

Desmond played around with his new home, found out he could zoom into things. His microphones had levels of sensitivity as well.

He was, on the whole, impressed with it. If he had to live in a computer shell for the rest of his "life", this was a vast improvement over the previous design.

Better than the Temple, even. He wished he could move himself, but he had a feeling this was as good as it was going to get for a while. Rebecca, he was confident, could make something he could use eventually. 

"Hey, guys," he called out, and Rebecca lifted her head, but Shaun had to be slapped on the shoulder before he responded, "I just wanted to say thanks. For this. It's pretty great."

Rebecca grinned at him, and even Shaun offered a smile that seemed distracted. "Rebecca did most of the work," he grumbled, adjusted his glasses, and returned to work.

Rebecca laughed. "Don't let his modesty fool you, he came up with most of the good improvements."

"Seriously, though," Desmond urged, "thanks."

Rebecca only grinned so hard she nearly glowed with it. "Anytime."

~

The next few months followed a similar pattern: missions, then analysis.

There were only a few main methods for the team to gain access to Abstergos systems, none of them remote, since Desmond had only ever existed in closed systems, and none of them knew how he would react or feel in an open system like the internet, and Desmond himself was terrified of attempting any kind of wireless transfer.

Each time, they also deployed more spyware, each specially designed for the system he was infiltrating. Once or twice, it would ping them, though Desmond hadn't ever been sent in for a follow up yet.

There was some travel, of course, but all of it was over land, and they always returned to the same safe house. Their road trips were hilarious.

Desmond also ended up receiving tons of digital books, to help pass the time. He was trying to get them to let him have some games or apps, or something, but they hadn’t been able to make the time yet.

Still, the months following when he got his new case were better than he'd hoped. He truly felt like he was part of a team, a real, effective team for the assassins.

Then Shaun told him it was time for another road trip; his father had finally agreed to see him.

Shaun hadn't actually looked happy to deliver the news, and Desmond couldn't bring himself to ask why.

The trip to see William took 5 days; even now, they wouldn't tell him where they were going. The atmosphere was strained; even Rebecca was subdued, and no amount of cajoling would lighten the mood - or loosen their lips.

Whatever was coming, it was clear they both knew what it was, and they weren't looking forward to it. Even expressing rising annoyance or anger elicited nothing more than weary acceptance from the two.

Desmond was officially freaked out. The last few hours passed in tense silence. Desmond tried to read one of his books, but he couldn't concentrate enough. That was not a problem he expected to have in this form, but he was still learning things all the time, so... _that_ was a thing he supposed.

Once they arrived, things got worse. Shaun was stiff and Rebecca was sullen, and no one spoke as they made their way through checkpoints to William's office. This was not the same location that they'd used the last time.

This time, however, Desmond was carried into the office along with Shaun, Rebecca following behind.

At that moment, Desmond only focused on his father; William looked a decade older, even though only a little more than half that time had passed. His hair was more light than dark, and the lines in his face were both deeper and more plentiful. Yet, he looked more like a Mentor to Desmond now than he ever had.

It wasn't the added age, though Desmond couldn't pinpoint what it was. He looked severe, remote in a way that was foreign to Desmond.

He looked so _tired._

He motioned for Desmond to be placed on his desk. Thanks to his extra cameras, Desmond could see Rebecca and Shaun back away, and watched them both choose to stand rather than sit in the chairs provided.

Desmond kept watching them as William started looking him over. The man took a deep breath and asked, "Desmond?", and Desmond wanted so much to forgive him based only on the tremulous tone of voice, one he'd never heard from his father.

"Hey, dad," he replied, quiet. He saw Shaun flinch slightly. William's face relaxed, but only for a split second.

"So it's really you, huh?" he asked, then even the slight vulnerability was gone from his face. "Tell me about what happened," he said, back to the authoritative tone Desmond knew and, well, knew.

Desmond wanted to sigh, but at least he could be certain this was his father. So he did as William asked, ran through everything that he remembered after waking up. It took a little while, and neither Shaun nor Rebecca spoke, not even to answer questions. It made sense, once he thought about it a little bit; William clearly didn't trust he was who he said he was, not yet.

Desmond just couldn't figure out why now. What had changed in the last four months to inspire the change of heart that had him summoning Desmond to hear him out?

After Desmond finished, William spent a few moments with his hands clasped in front of him, and his head bowed.

"Son," he said softly, and Desmond felt a little annoyed at just how a single word from this man offered such relief. "I'm sorry."

"What?" Desmond asked, because he'd never thought he'd hear those words from his father.

"I'm sorry I didn't see you sooner. I... didn't think you could be, well, you. Not really. The possibility that you might be was as bad as you being a Templar program. That's why I had to test you."

"It's... Well, I don't know that I can say it's okay, but I get it," Desmond replied. It hurt, but he could understand. Rebecca said his dad had taken his death pretty hard.

William sighed heavily. "Thank you, Desmond. It's, well, now that I'm sure, we can start sending you on real missions, if you still want to be an Assassin."

"Wait, what do you mean 'real missions'?"

William glanced over to the two behind Desmond, and both looked, well, awful. Guilty. Neither looked at Desmond, though Shaun did stare challengingly at William, who nodded.

"I had to be sure, Desmond," William began, but Desmond cut him off.

"What did you do?" he demanded, as much to his partners as his father.

"It was my condition," William said firmly. "There was too much to risk, so I had them test you. The missions _were_ real, you were infiltrating actual Abstergo systems, but they were more for... confirmation."

"What."

"Each mission was its own test. Of you. To see if you would reach out to Abstergo at all. They tracked your movements within the system, saw where you looked and what you touched. I ordered them to do this, Desmond, as a condition of being allowed to stay. "

" _Allowed_ to stay? What the fuck, were you going to delete me?"

"No! I was going to have them leave you in the Temple. Desmond, I didn't think you were real, and if you were a tool of Abstergo, the damage you could do… I can’t even calculate the harm that could be done."

" _I feel_ like I'm real, isn't that enough?"

William was silent for a moment, and Desmond's fury only grew. "No," William said after a moment. "It wasn't, not for me. It was for them, though."

Rebecca finally burst into motion, like she couldn't hold it in any longer. "I'm sorry, Des!"

William glared at her, but even Desmond could tell it lacked heat.

"I'm... I don't want to talk to you right now," he said. If he could, he'd storm out and go run to clear his head. But he couldn't. And he didn't want to say something he'd regret later. "Could you guys just go for a bit?"

Shaun didn't argue, just looked to William, who nodded, then Shaun sent Desmond a look he couldn't read, and touched Rebecca's shoulder, led her outside.

Which left Desmond alone with his dad. He hadn't really thought this through.

William sighed again. "Don't be too hard on them, please. This was my plan. They went along with it so they could keep you with them."

"Yeah, they went along with it, alright. Why this long?"

"I had to be sure," he said. "If I was going to let you stay, access highly sensitive Assassin systems, I needed to have no doubts."

"What are you talking about, I haven't accessed anything, they were very careful not to let me."

"I know, I meant... You don't have to run missions, son. You could just stay, if you wanted. Here, with me, or with your mother, or even at what passes for our headquarters right now."

Even though he was mad at them, he was upset that staying with Rebecca and Shaun wasn't a listed option. "What about Rebecca and Shaun?" he asked, because yeah, he was so pissed at them right now, but he wanted to know all his options.

His dad didn't look surprised by the question at all. "You could stay with them, if you wanted; they’ve already agreed, no missions necessary."

Desmond felt that strange dissonance he still experienced every time he felt something that would have included a physiological reaction. He hadn't considered that maybe they wouldn't want to anymore. He didn't think it likely, but it was still a possibility.

"What would I do, if I stayed?" he asked instead.

His dad looked confused, got that little frown Desmond had only recently learned wasn't actually anger. "Whatever you wanted. You don't have to work to earn your stay," he said, in a soft tone that was foreign to Desmond.

This unexpected softness from his father brought a sudden, hot anger so sharp and intense Desmond almost expected to hear circuits fry.

There were no deep breaths to take, so he imagined them instead, remembered the sensation of lungs filling and emptying. He counted the seconds, too.

When he reached forty, he focused on his father again, who sat with hands folded and expression unreadable, looking at Desmond squarely.

"I need some time to think. Is there somewhere I can be alone?"

The request did surprise his father, going by his expression, but William nodded. "Of course," he said. "There's a quiet room nearby. I’ll take you there."

Desmond didn't really _want_ to be alone, but he was faced with the reality of how much he relied on everyone around him to go or do anything, and if he was going to be angry at the people around him, it was at least smarter to do so when he couldn't lash out and sabotage his chances to get, if not what he wanted, the best outcome he could hope for.


	16. Chapter 16

Shaun paced around the small office, while Rebecca watched him, wearily. He found it a little ironic that she was so torn up about everything now, when she'd been so unruffled about the deception the whole time she'd been actively participating in it.

Normally, she'd be making an effort to calm him down, but now she just tracked his progress with her eyes, back and forth. She wasn't really watching him, though, too lost in the guilt she'd suppressed up until now.

He sighed.

"He'll forgive us," he said quietly. He knew he didn't sound as confident as he wanted to, but in truth, he wasn't as confident as he wanted to be.

"Ugh, we shouldn't have let William tell him," she groused, "Desmond was so pissed. He might not forgive us."

"He'll at least hear us out," Shaun replied, and he knew that came out with confidence because he was certain of that much, at least.

"How do you know?" she whined back at him.

"Because that's who he is," Shaun said, moving to stand by the chair she was sat in. "If nothing else, we'll at least be able to explain why we agreed."

"I just wanted to keep him," she murmured, leaning into the hand he put on her shoulder.

"I know, Becca. Me too," he replied. He gave her shoulder a squeeze, then resumed his pacing.

It was just a matter of when, that's all. He could be patient. He could. He just didn't have to be still while he was patient.

It wasn't too much longer before there was a knock at the door, and William let himself in.

Rebecca bolted out of the chair, but didn't approach him. "Well?" she demanded. "What did he say? Can we talk to him?"

William shook his head. "I'm afraid not. He wants to think. Did you guys consider he might not want to be an agent?"

Shaun nodded, but Rebecca sighed and shook her head. "We considered it, even brought it up with him, but I know I didn’t really think he’d choose that," she murmured.

"Well, it's on the table, and I don’t know that he isn’t considering it. I gave him all of his options, as we see them. He could choose to stay, or go with his mother. Or we'll take him somewhere else. Let him leave the Assassins entirely."

Shaun felt his back go tense at that last option. He had considered that Desmond might not want to stay with them, but he hadn't thought about outside options at all. It made sense. Shaun had no idea where Desmond might go, but at least... At least he was alive. Kind of.

He forced his body to relax, and nodded. "Alright. Do you have a place for us to stay while we wait?"

William nodded. "Of course, come with me."

The Mentor's temporary HQ was a large, two story home on a street that looked like any other, but many of the houses in that street also housed Assassins. William led them to the house next door, and showed them to a guest room they'd share for at least a few days.

If Desmond couldn't decide quickly, Shaun knew they'd be sent into the field without him. The Assassins were too few and stretched too thin to hold up two active, uninjured field agents for one man. Person.

He paced in their room until even Rebecca was fed up, and bullied him into heading downstairs to prepare food.

They cooked, no word. They ate, no word. No one came while Shaun showered, no one came while he read reports after Rebecca complained again about the pacing. No one came at all by the time he was so tired he had to lay down or he'd pass out at the desk.

No one came in the morning to wake them.

Shaun really wasn't all that great at being patient, no matter what he tried to tell himself. The next day, he spent talking to the agents at this little urban compound, just gathering what information was available. Communication was for emergencies only right now, so this was a smorgasbord of data to gather and sort through.

It also helped pass the time.

By dinner time, no one had found him to summon him, and Rebecca confirmed she'd heard nothing as well. Dinner was subdued.

He believed what he'd said earlier, but even he knew Desmond would be well within his rights to take all the time he needed before he gave them that chance to explain.

After dinner, though, there was a knock at the door and Shaun all but raced to answer it.

There was a kid there, a teenager, who smirked at him and jerked his head towards the Mentor’s house and sauntered off.

Shaun didn't even spare the time for a mental rant about insufferable children before he yelled for Rebecca to come on, that it was time.

He only hoped he'd been right, that Desmond gave them a chance to explain.

He didn't let himself hope for more.

~

They weren't led into the same office as before, but a smaller one upstairs instead. The room was empty, save for Desmond's case, sitting on the center of the desk.

The effect was somewhat ominous, actually, but Shaun tried to look as unaffected as possible. Rebecca didn't even hesitate, at least, not until she approached Desmond, where she came to a stop a foot or two away from him.

She didn't say anything, though, and Desmond wasn't saying anything, so Shaun figured it was up to him to break the ice.

"Hello, Desmond," he said, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Desmond didn't reply immediately, and Shaun looked at Rebecca when he caught the motion of her turning to look at him.

"Hey guys," Desmond said, making the two of them turn to look at him again.

"Des, I'm sorry!" Rebecca rushed out, leaning forward towards the camera facing them.

"Are you?" Desmond retorted. "Because four months is a long time to keep lying to me."

Shaun glanced over at Rebecca, who was nodding. "I am. I didn't want to, but... It was the only way."

"And you, Shaun, are you sorry?"

"I am sorry that deception was necessary," he answered, then paused. "I.. I am sorry if I misjudged what you'd want, as a long term outcome."

Even Rebecca was looking at him strangely.

"What do you mean?" Desmond asked.

"I mean that what part I played in this was based on what I thought you would want. I couldn't exactly ask you, so I used my best judgement. Part of this was my idea, I won't deny that, but after much argument and debate, this plan was something we all agreed upon in the end."

"Just what on earth did you think I'd want, to go along with this plan?!"

"To stay with us!" Rebecca answered.

Shaun nodded. "Partly, yes. William wanted us to return you to the temple. I thought that would have been awful for you. Even if you didn't stay with us, necessarily, surely you wouldn't want that. Plus..." he took a breath. "I wanted William to acknowledge you, to accept you, if possible. I thought you'd want that, too."

"I wanted you to stay with us," Rebecca added, "if you wanted to. But even if we couldn't have gotten William to agree, I'm not sure we would have returned you to the temple."

Shaun laughed, but shook his head. "I don't know where we'd have taken you, but yeah, we wouldn't have left you there."

"You guys didn't just think about keeping me anyways?"

Shaun cleared his throat. "We did. We talked about it. But logistically, we couldn't keep you secret all that long. Not with the traveling we're doing now. And, I have to confess, William made a strong argument. I... doubted, for a time. I wasn't willing to risk the Brotherhood. Eventually, I realized that, if you were who you said you were - and I do believe you are - you would understand that, if nothing else."

Rebecca glanced over to Desmond, like she'd be able to see his reaction, but her eyes cut back to Shaun just a heartbeat later.

"You? You thought I could be a decoy?" Shaun winced at that, because Desmond sounded genuinely hurt at that.

"I did," he answered softly. "It would have been a perfect plan, and well within Abstergo's ability to create. William said I trusted you too easily, and coming from him, of all people, well... it scared me."

Desmond sighed, which actually reassured Shaun a bit. "So your first response was to be a huge, emotionally constipated asshole about it?" he paused for a moment, then, "Wait, no, now that I've said it out loud, that makes sense. I want you guys to know, I'm still really mad. And hurt."

Rebecca smiled, though, wide and relieved. "I know, Des, you totally have a good reason."

"I know I do! So, you both were hoping I'd stay with you?"

"Yes, we were," Shaun answered, because Rebecca had already said so. "But we tried to prepare for your answer being no."

Rebecca smiled. "You don't have to work, that's not, like, a condition. We will, but you could just hang. If you wanted." Her grin, to Shaun at least, said she didn't think he'd want that at all.

Shaun couldn't help grinning as well, because he didn't think Desmond would just 'hang' while they worked.

Desmond groaned. "Look at you. You guys already know I'm not gonna do that. Will it be really different than what I've done before?"

Rebecca shrugged. "Not as much as William implied, no. We _were_ running real missions. The data was real. Just not new."

Shaun nodded. "Look, if you're in, I expect you to be in. If you have ideas or reservations, I expect you to bring them up. You are one of us, and not more expendable than we are."

Rebecca nodded eagerly, but didn't add anything.

Desmond was silent a moment, and Shaun wished he had an indicator somehow that Desmond was thinking or something. Maybe he should suggest it as a small program Desmond could use.

"Alright, " Desmond said finally. "I'm in. I mean it. But dad had arranged for me to see my mom. So you guys get a little bit of time to plan our first mission."

Shaun didn't realize how tense he'd gotten until he relaxed. "Alright," he said, "We'll get right on it. When do you leave?"

"Couple of hours," Desmond said, which means he'd already told William his plans.

"Great," he answered, "So, speaking of ideas, how about you use the screen to let us know when you're thinking of something."

"Like what?" Desmond asked gamely.

"Like a loading bar!" Rebecca suggested.

Desmond laughed, and the screen flickered on to display an ASCII middle finger.

Rebecca burst into laughter alongside Shaun. "Where did you even learn that?" she asked.

"From a nerd in Abstergo, actually. They use Slack, so I grabbed some emojis, too. I was just waiting for a good opportunity."

Rebecca only laughed harder at that, and even Shaun was hard pressed to keep his face more or less straight. He didn't try all that hard, if he was being honest, and as an animated emoji of a poorly drawn 'thinking' face appeared, he lost the battle and barked out a laugh despite himself.

"But for real, I want a way to communicate with you guys at a distance. I can't send out anything that isn't hard wired."

Rebecca caught his eye and nodded. "That's a good point," she said. "Anything else?"

"Oh yeah, I've got a few ideas."

"Perfect. Lay ‘em on us, and we'll see what we can do while you're gone."

~

To Shaun's surprise, William didn't call for Rebecca or himself after sending Desmond on his trip. They'd forgotten to ask how long he'd be gone, too.

Well, it gave them time to think about upgrades to Desmond's home, at least. Build in a wifi port, some basic software to get Desmond started... Maybe a hardwired trigger to alert a small device they would keep on their person, just for emergencies.

They got started on plans, talked about part alternatives, even discussed the necessity of creating more extraction procedures for tougher infiltration. The two of them went over the likelihood of Desmond's needing to be able to travel via wifi, and the challenges involved.

He knew Rebecca was holding herself back from being a nosy git and asking about things that both weren't her business and also weren't important to their work. Not really.

It was in her curious glances, the way she bit her lip and sighed before turning away or asking something else.

He refused to give her an in. She already knew enough, anyway.

Also, he didn't want to talk about it.

For all her brashness, though, Rebecca also possessed a sensitivity many wouldn't expect. She didn't push; well, not more than passive aggressively, anyway. He could deal with that.

Or so he thought. After two days of careful looks, the starts and stops of a Rebecca who almost spoke before she thought, and leading statements carefully worded after thinking, he gave up.

"Alright, what is it?" he demanded after what had to be the twentieth sigh in an hour. He carefully set down the soldering iron he'd been using, then turned to glare at her.

Rebecca lit up. "So what are you gonna do about it?" she asked.

"What am I going to do about what?" He asked, just to needle her, but he knew precisely what she was talking about, and answered before she could, "Nothing!" Of course she wanted him to do something about it, like there was anything he could do.

"Nothing? Why not?"

He stared at her, dumbstruck. "Why not? Rebecca, why _would_ I? What is the best possible outcome of this situation?" he waited for her to take a breath to answer but spoke before she could. "Nothing, Rebecca, there isn't one. There's no outcome that isn't awful, so I'm not going to do anything at all."

Rebecca deflated at that. "Couldn't you treat it like a long-distance relationship?"

"Maybe I could, but maybe I'm also not willing to risk everything on that, either. There are too many things we're dealing with right now to throw this complication on top of it."

"What about-"

"Rebecca, just drop it!" he all but shouted at her, and when he turned to look at her, he could see her disappointment writ all over her face. He gentled his tone, before speaking again. "Listen, it's not a big deal, alright? It's fine the way it is."

Rebecca pouted, but nodded. "It's not fine," she replied, "But I'll drop it. You sure you wanna keep him with us, then?"

"Of course I am. We're his friends, and he's one of us. It would be incredibly stupid to abandon him over something as ultimately inconsequential as... 'feelings'," he said, with a measured scorn - just enough to get her to drop it.

"They're not -" Rebecca started, but stopped at his glare. "I think you're wrong, but you obviously get to call the shots about it. But no more running away. You _chose_ this!"

Shaun smiled at her, a small thing that was genuine despite the unsettled emotions he hadn't wanted to acknowledge, much less speak about. "I know," he said, returning to soldering parts onto the small addition they were going to install into Desmond's case when he returned. This was a truth he'd been used to hiding before Desmond had even died, so he didn't imagine it would be any harder just because Desmond didn't have a body anymore. "I won't."


	17. Chapter 17

The visit with his mother had done a lot to soothe Desmond's soul, he felt. She'd obviously been briefed on his new form, and it hadn't been awkward at all. When he first spoke, she'd been visibly holding herself back from giving him a hug; he told her to go for it; even though he had no way to feel it, he'd felt a relief all the same.

She never showed any doubt of him, not once. She never said she regretted how he was now, only that she was glad he'd survived.

He wondered how he hadn't missed her more after running away. His father, he'd hated at the time. But he'd let that overshadow his memory of his mother, and how she was the only one of the two to understand him.

He was much more like her than his father. But she'd been away a lot, taking missions all over the globe; she'd been one of the best field agents for a long time, and even having a kid hadn't slowed her down. Even now, she was training recruits while she recovered from a minor injury after a successful infiltration had had a less than successful extraction.

He realized, on that visit, that he'd transferred his resentment of her frequent absence to his father's constant presence. Not to say he wouldn't have run away if she hadn't been gone, but he might not have done so at that age, when anger and despair overwhelmed everything else.

He didn't speak of these things while he was there, though. It didn't matter anymore; he'd seen all the other versions of himself, after all, and none of them could have saved the world as he had done. It was a little surprising how much comfort that knowledge was; that the Desmond he’d turned out to be had been the one the world needed most.

Maybe that was the real curse of the Assassins; that there was always going to be a sacrifice. Give up seeing your child growing up, missing their milestones, to save hundreds or thousands of others, and their children. Or give up that hope, all to raise a child who may or may not follow in your footsteps. Raise a child that resents you so much he walks away from everything you tried to teach him, only for that child to die to save the world.

He supposed he was grateful that he'd been given a choice. And that his parents had, as well.

By the time he was being driven back to meet his father, and his teammates, he felt more at peace than he'd been since he first saw activity in the temple.

But the trip gave him time to think about things. He'd focused on seeing his mother, and while he'd decided to forgive his friends, he hadn't exactly examined every fact of that decision, or his reasons.

He stood by his choice, he did, but he knew he needed to acknowledge why he was so upset in the first place. It wasn't just the deceit, though that was a big part of it, to be sure.

It was their doubt, their own lack of trust. More specifically, Shaun's. He knew he’d had a crush on the man when he'd been alive. But, it wasn't just a crush anymore, and that was a problem.

His feelings had nowhere to go; _that_ was the real problem. He couldn't tell anyone. He'd never been one to suffer in silence when he’d been alive - in a body. Hell, if there hadn't been a deadline for the whole goddamn planet hanging over their heads, he'd have asked Shaun on whatever kind of date they could manage after he'd woken from that coma.

But there _had_ been a deadline, emphasis on dead, and he never got the chance. Which would've been fine, if he hadn't then spent months learning more about the man than he'd ever known.

If he hadn't gotten to see Shaun in his element, when talking about his passions, or teaching him about patterns and data and other stuff Desmond still found absolutely boring. But even now, he'd sit through hours more of Shaun's lessons.

If he hadn't had late night conversations when Shaun couldn't sleep; or hadn't seen his super secret soft side when Shaun forgot he was always watching, even when Shaun was mothering a protesting Rebecca into bed.

It wasn't just a crush anymore, and Desmond could do absolutely nothing about it. He couldn't bear the pity, if anyone should find out.

It was a hell of its own somehow, because he could imagine all sorts of things with Shaun, if he only had a body. He remembered how it felt to kiss someone, but he'd never kiss Shaun. He remembered the sweet warmth of just holding hands, but that was impossible now.

He had literally nothing to offer. There was no future for him with anyone, and hell, maybe he'd outlive them like this. Maybe he'd have to watch Shaun have that future with someone else.

Everything about it looked so bleak from where he was.

But he was still determined to stay with them. To help, however he could. Maybe he couldn't do it forever, but he wanted to do it now. He couldn't know how long he would have them, not with the lives they led. Rebecca had been shot only a couple of years ago, it was lucky she was still here!

So what if he'd never get kisses, or hand holding, with Shaun or anyone. He would take what he could get, and he was determined to be grateful about it.

He was lucky to have even this, and he knew it.

Maybe he'd make sure they knew it, too. It was the best he could do.

~

His father visited him when he got back, but that's all it was - a visit. No orders, no new mission, nothing. Then he had to wait for his teammates to come get him.

Man, not having a body _sucked._

They didn't take too long, though, and Rebecca seemed genuinely excited to see him. Shaun looked pleased, at least.

Desmond decided to focus on Rebecca just so he wasn't overly focusing on anything he was trying to set aside.

"We've talked about some upgrades while you were gone," she enthused, then Shaun cleared his throat and Rebecca coughed a small, polite cough. "I mean, how was your trip? How's your mom doing?"

Desmond laughed. "She's fine," he said, "the trip was fine. Go on, what were you talking about?"

That was all the excuse she needed; pleasantries over with, she launched into her speech, talking about pocket sized emergency beacons, wifi installation, more training about all of that, all while Shaun came over and picked him up and they made their way out of the big house that his dad was using, and into a single story house just a little ways down the street.

It sounded interesting. He was still extremely worried about wifi, but he liked the emergency beacon idea. He supposed he really should learn if he could even use wifi, just to make sure. In case of extreme emergency, at the very least.

He wasn't too surprised that the living room of their temporary home was covered in spare parts; he knew what Rebecca was like when she got an idea in her head.

Shaun wasn't much better; he just liked to pretend he was.

Rebecca showed him her prototypes while Shaun ended up going to get boxes, apparently, so he could pack up the unneeded parts as Rebecca talked.

Then Shaun went to make dinner, while he and Rebecca talked about contingency plans and hashed out emergency situations. He even carried Desmond into the dining room so that they could continue the conversation while the two people with bodies ate.

That's when he started chiming in with his own ideas for plans, and this? This is what Desmond had wanted without being able to define it. And he'd have said it came as easy as breathing, if he still did that anymore.

He didn't, of course, but when things were like this, it was easy to think he didn't mind so much.

~

They stayed in the complex with his father for a week longer - long enough to actually install and test the wifi adapter on Desmond's case. They didn't test it with Desmond himself, not yet, but at least taught him how to use their personalized software to communicate through it, so he could message his parents without having to ask to be wired to a network.

They made a ton of plans while they worked. The emergency beacon activator was installed as well, and they were still working on ways to use it effectively. Desmond was a fan of trying Morse code, and using an unblinking light to indicate an emergency, but Morse took time to read, time they might not have. Shaun favored inventing their own code.

It gave them something to bicker about while they drove to their new safehouse. They really only agreed that the constant light would make an excellent warning signal, but they couldn't agree on what exactly it should mean.

What Desmond wanted it most for didn't actually work, since he'd wanted a way to warn them to escape if he discovered something that would endanger them. But he couldn't activate them while within Abstergo systems. Not until he learned about every kind of wireless communication, at least, so he could learn how to find and activate them with whatever he could find in a facility. Most Abstergo facilities used wired networks, for security.

Shaun looked kind of excited about all the training they were talking about, actually.

He had a lot of ideas, and wasn't shy about sharing. Once they arrived, he made it very clear he was starting a list, and expected their input.

On the one hand, it was funny. Shaun being Shaun. On the other, though, it was nice to see he was taking this seriously, and wanted them to be an effective team.

Desmond was willing to be trained. Rebecca was willing to help train.

So over a late dinner, they brainstormed to make that list - everything they wanted to be able to do during a mission, emergency and contingency ideas given the most weight.

Desmond most wanted a way to warn his human partner(s) of any danger, even if it meant being left behind. The other two understood, but weren't so keen on the whole 'left behind' idea.

Rebecca wanted him to know how to keep himself safer during extractions, or, alternatively, how to infiltrate remotely. That was a harder order to fill, but everyone agreed it was something worth investigating.

Shaun most wanted Desmond to be able to travel safely over wireless signals. His argument was that the number of invisible networks within and without Abstergo facilities made this a no-brainer. Rebecca agreed firmly, but Desmond was still hesitant. He was scared to lose himself, whatever it is he was now. Still, he agreed to look into it, and to really try if they promised not to push him too far.

They promised.

There were other ideas bandied about, more talk about their flashing light code, whatever it might end up being, but the night ended with a sense of purpose and direction that Desmond was actually grateful for. He didn't know what the final destination would be, but he knew they'd get there eventually.

~

All three of them took to the training with an ease and enthusiasm that reassured Desmond. They'd be fine, or as fine as they could be, given the circumstances.

There were upgrades made to his case, and he got to Skype with his mom as a test shortly after - it was a relief to know he could do that now, he didn't need to ask or be carried somewhere.

It was, given the nature of the Brotherhood, advised that he keep such contact to a minimum, but just having the option went a long way to alleviating Desmond's fears - both of the fear of being left alone, but also the anxiety of being a bother every time he needed something.

They also installed cellular receivers in his case - just in case wifi wasn't available, he'd have another way to communicate (or escape) in case there was no physical connection.

"We can lose the case, we can lose the power cell, Desmond, but we can't lose you," Rebecca had said to him when he expressed concern over Abstergo ever recovering the case he was in.

It was touching, and he was pretty sure he'd failed at expressing exactly how much, but he'd done his best to let them know how much their efforts meant to him.

Still, time and Abstergo stopped for no man, and soon Shaun was tipped off that Abstergo was making moves towards actual production and distribution of a new behavioral modification medicine that they wanted to test at one of their 'experimental clinics'.

"It's worth checking out, if nothing else. We know some testing has already been done, we just need the results," Rebecca was saying. "It shouldn't have extreme security measures - even the activists who watch and protest these kinds of things have generally overlooked this clinic."

"What does the drug do?" Desmond asked.

"We're not entirely sure. While it's true that Abstergo genuinely produces non-harmful drugs, psychological prescriptions are something we like to keep an eye on - and they've been keeping an unusually tight lid on this one so far," she answered, and Shaun nodded.

"What concerns me is that our Intel so far implies they want to make this drug as prescribable as possible. That's a lot of red flags right there," he chimed in.

"Well, I'm in, obviously," he said. "Just tell me when and how."

The 'when' turned out to be soon, and the 'how' wasn't any different than some of his 'test runs' had been. Sneak in physically, hook in, sneak around digitally, unhook, sneak out quietly.

The prep was mostly for Shaun and Rebecca - there wasn't likely to be any unusual digital security at this location, as it wasn't considered high-risk by Abstergo's own security team. Desmond just focused on memorizing what he was after. If he found more data, that was always good, but there was a clear objective, and no reason to add extra risk to such a low-risk mission - especially since there was unlikely to be too much reward for such a risk.

Shaun was tagged as the infiltration for this mission, because Rebecca insisted it was fair, so she was the driver while Shaun looked over blueprints and his 'security dossier' he created for the facility - things like camera locations, shift changes, that kind of thing.

For him, it wasn't all that different - Shaun carried him into the facility, ended up breaking into a weird security outpost that apparently housed access to some of their systems - Desmond only needed a way in. It had cameras on it, but they were wireless models, easily hacked and their live feed replaced with looped footage while Shaun picked the lock.

Then they were in, and the camera feed released, and Shaun hooked Desmond into their network as easy as that.

"This is such a stupid setup," he griped. "This is what I would set up as a dummy system to trick idiotic agents."

"You're sure this isn't a dummy system?" Desmond asked, because, well, now that Shaun said it out loud...

"Yes!" he hissed. "I triple checked! This had better be worth it, I honestly can't imagine keeping anything of value here."

Desmond only laughed and waited until the connection kicked in. "Well, this shouldn't take long then, right?"

He was out - or in, depending on how you looked at it - before he even got to hear if Shaun answered.

Once inside, though, he could see that here, at least, things were more secure than they'd appeared outside. Almost everything was under two or three passwords, minimum. The levels of clearance to even work here were unusually high, it seemed.

It wasn't impossible, but it did make things take longer as he had to figure out how to slide through the extra levels of security. He wished he could send a quick text to Shaun about this, but figured he'd mention that for next time.

For twenty minutes, he found information that was mostly useless. Then he stumbled across something he never expected to see here. 'Subject 17'.

It wasn't what they were there for, but he kept tabs on the location to search later, if he had time. He'd already found out about the samples, after all.

He decided to work faster, though, to try and ensure he had that time. It took another fifteen minutes to find the information on the drug in question - Desmond skimmed the data and it seemed that it was exactly as Shaun and Rebecca had feared; a drug that affected mental states that had already seen _illegal_ human testing. Desmond didn't bother to judge the severity of the drug or reaction just yet, only grabbed all the data he could find.

Then he went back to the 'Subject 17' data. _His_ data.

The information led to a setup of digital security he'd never seen before, even in training. It wasn't something he couldn't navigate, he just needed time, time he might not have.

He went for it anyway. He kept track of the minutes as he worked. He was well within the time they'd allotted, but he couldn't help worrying nonetheless.

He went the slow but steady route to really ensure he didn't trip any alarms, and it took him almost twenty minutes on its own. He hoped it was worth it.

At first, it was just biographies, dossiers, the data pulled from his phone when they recovered his body, autopsy files, files on his current status, schedules, prescriptions...

_What the fuck?_

**Current status: Persistent Vegetative State; support authorized under order J-2389**

_What the FUCK._

It turned out the data was so heavily guarded because it was on a physically separate server in a very special part of the facility, with its own camera feeds. It had been tricky to get inside, but once inside this sequestered cluster, there were no additional security measures. There were four cameras, one on a door, one on a hallway, and two in different corners of a room that held his body, and a single armed guard currently engaged in something on his phone.

_His body._

He, it, was full of tubes going into all sorts of places he didn't want to think about. But he - _it_ \- was definitely alive. Sort of. There were a bunch of electrodes attached to his shaved head, and while Desmond had no idea what they meant, he didn't think the lines on the attached monitors should be quite so flat.

The cameras weren't as helpful as the files. Along with the single guard in the room, the patrols in this part of the facility were staffed with more than three times the number of guards in the upper levels, and this room always had one inside, and one in the hallway outside, and a medical technician that visited every four hours.

Desmond forgot to track the time, but he copied every single file on that server before he made his way back out through the security measures.

He shot back towards their entry point, and the moment he was back in his case, he flicked the light on and started separating data.

He gave a deeper glance to the files he'd been sent to retrieve; he wanted nothing more to read about his own body, but Shaun would expect him to have some familiarity with what he pulled, so that would have to wait.

At least he'd gotten better at that.

~

Shaun was ecstatic that the data was, in fact, worth it. It confirmed what they'd feared about the drug’s intentions as a means to influence swaths of people at a time, and while Abstergo compliance medication in wide distribution was an awful possibility, it turned out there were complications in the drug that hadn't been worked out.

Naturally, they weren't looking to eliminate them, only minimize them to 'tolerable' side effects.

Ugh, what dicks.

Still, while the two of them were excited, Desmond waited until they were asleep before examining the other data he'd pulled.

The data on himself. On _his body._

He'd discovered that not only was that 'separate' area under super heavy guard, unlike anything else in the facility, even the files themselves were guarded, with dummy data on the medicine that looked legitimately like routine testing of a possible drug, very similar to the data Shaun and Rebecca had actually been after.

The Templars were deliberately keeping him alive, but he wasn't sure why. There was mention that the orders were simply to support his vegetative body with required nutrients and any other necessities for their purposes, but what those purposes were was not mentioned.

He realized that he couldn't mention it to Shaun or Rebecca. His parents, however...

His parents, he knew, would be practical about it. It was sad, and maybe they'd put together an assessment of viability for a retrieval mission, but Desmond judged it wasn't likely at all, given not only the resources needed to be successful, but, what came after...Even if they retrieved his body, how on earth could he get back inside it?

Shaun and Rebecca, however, were much less likely to listen to reason. They'd want to retrieve him, and might attempt to do so, even against orders. He couldn't let that happen, and he had no way to stop them at all, trapped as he was in this case. 

So he'd have to hide it from them. At least until he’d heard back from his parents - if they could provide a list of all the reasons retrieval wasn’t feasible… surely his partners would listen then.

It felt wrong, it _was_ wrong, and he knew he couldn't hide it forever. The data was well-protected, but it wasn't super likely that they only had this data in this one place.

Still. The only people who would know for now would be his parents, unless and until he didn't have a choice any longer, and he’d just have to hope that when his friends found out - _when_ , not if - that he’d have found the right words. And, of course, that they’d listen.


	18. Chapter 18

Despite all his bitching (and he knew he bitched a lot), Shaun actually really enjoyed field work. He was passable at the parkour, but it was the careful planning and the satisfaction of a great execution that really worked for him.

And he was damn good at it. Even when it wasn't his turn to infiltrate, he was the one doing the bulk of the planning. Rebecca could, of course, but she knew how much Shaun actually enjoyed it, so she generally left him to it and only gave her input when she felt it was needed.

She was great at following plans, but of the two of them, she was often also better at split-second decisions to unexpected developments. Shaun's M.O. was to plan as much as he could for as many outcomes as he could, and it usually worked out well for him.

Rebecca got one solid plan, and then deviated or didn't as she saw fit. She usually didn't, but sometimes, something went wrong. Or even better than expected, and a new opportunity showed up. Of those two, though, it usually went wrong.

Not all of their missions involved Desmond, actually, a fact that he took really well, but man, some days his bitching could even rival Shaun's.

Shaun knew it was really borne of desperation, since Desmond couldn't really do anything should things go extremely south. He felt he could understand, even if Desmond's situation was particularly unique.

Still, Desmond was pretty vocal about it, at least, which reassured Shaun in a way. There were times he was still shocked to turn around and find himself responding to a computer case, and not a man. It was happening less frequently, and a part of him mourned that he was adjusting to this, that he really was accepting this as their new reality.

It wasn't all that bad, though. At least Desmond was with them. That was enough. More than, even.

Even with that, Shaun felt these might be the best days of his life. Yes, they were in danger all the time, yes, they were constantly behind, but he'd never felt more alive than he had with these people at his side. Fighting evil and whatnot.

It felt good, when it wasn't pants-wettingly terrifying of course.

Thing is, humans are quirky creatures. Their minds are only capable of tracking so much at one time, even his. With all the leads they were following and with how cut off they were from the other Assassins, well. He liked to think they had an excuse.

That _he_ had an excuse. Because they had kind of forgotten about Juno.

Sure, they knew she was out there, somewhere, but it was a nebulous kind of knowing, and Shaun had known that after Desmond's death, there was another team (possibly multiple teams) whose job was to keep tabs on her, and counter her if needed.

He had no idea what intel they had on her, obviously, he only had what they'd known before the Rooftop Garden Protocol was enacted, and what they'd gleaned from Abstergo since, which was very, very little, apparently.

Rebecca was taking a bath instead of her post-mission shower, since she'd had to fight today. Things had gone a little south, but she'd handled it just fine, as he knew she would.

Desmond wasn't alone in wishing they could have those little cameras flying over them in every mission, streaming the feed back to their partners waiting in a van or a hotel room.

Still, he was poring over what she'd retrieved, and what she'd said.

She'd witnessed someone talking to Juno. Actually witnessed it herself. Got part of the conversation recorded, actually.

Juno was working with Abstergo. This conversation had been on an organizational level rather than individual, though Shaun would bet that she was working with as many well-placed and skilled agents as she could, given her history, her methods, and what he suspected her goals might be. A few, well-placed turncoats to do her bidding under Abstergo's noses would be her game, he’d put money on it.

But she _was_ working with Abstergo above-table, and the implications were terrible. They seemed to have her in check somehow, had something over her that kept her 'in line' as it were, but it appeared she was not happy with them. Of course, both she and the Templar Inner Circle were the types to do all they could to have the upper hand with everyone they dealt with. Shaun would bet each side in that partnership felt they truly had the upper hand, no matter what they projected.

Juno, though, was quickly becoming a problem for them, _again_. A big one.

Rebecca hadn't seen any sign of any other surveillance or Assassin presence near the facility, but of course if the Assassins were any good, she wouldn't.

He was trying to compose his arguments for shifting their objectives to follow her instead. Wasn't that what they were best at? Big threats, big reward?

Turns out, he didn't even need arguments. Both Rebecca and Desmond were all-in. Both of them agreed immediately when he voiced his opinion over dinner, after Rebecca had finished bathing and he'd finished cooking.

He felt he could fairly accurately guess Rebecca's reasons, but he felt that Desmond's might actually be more personal - after all, Juno's actions had led to not only his death, but had forced him to kill Lucy as well.

With their agreement, the only thing that was left was a plan. Luckily, that was Shaun's specialty.

~

It turned out that finding evidence of Juno's activity wasn't hard. There were traces of her presence in many of the files they already had.

The real trouble was with forming a 'big picture' with all of these pieces. Shaun hated to admit it, but with the information they had, he couldn't put any sort of solid picture together at all.

They ended up abandoning the safehouse, left all the proper signs for the next team that might need it, and headed north, towards the last known whereabouts of a team that Shaun was friendly with, who might have useful data they could trade for.

Turns out that team had moved on, but Shaun was able to work out their next location, and caught up with them two days later.

They were happy to turn over all of the information they'd gathered in the last few years in return for the data Shaun and Rebecca had gathered, as well as an update on the Mentor, since they had recently visited him.

Desmond stayed behind when they met with the Assassin team. Shaun didn't really want word of him getting out at all. Not in this climate. Desmond agreed without any fight, and while Shaun might have been suspicious of such easy capitulation before, he'd had no such doubts this time.

Desmond hadn't agreed so easily to being hidden while his actual bodied teammates were away, but he had, eventually. Sure, Desmond couldn't run off on his own, but he couldn't really do a lot to prevent his own abduction, either.

Maybe that should be added to the list of modifications.

Still, even though Shaun's paranoia was unfulfilled this time, he didn't regret asking Desmond to stay hidden. Desmond didn't grumble all that much when he'd been placed back on the hotel table, either.

"Want to help sort through this data?" he asked, because while he didn't need help, he could use it, and it was important to him to include Desmond in this stuff, to let him know he was trusted and valued.

"Sure," Desmond said easily enough.

It was quiet as they worked. Rebecca was wrangling dinner - or, ordering Chinese, as it sounded like - from the bedroom. This was nice, actually. He could see Desmond's progress, as files were sorted into "Juno stuff" and "Not Juno Stuff" (Desmond's organization, not Shaun's; he hadn't given any direction on what he'd wanted and it worked well enough for now).

Food ordered, Rebecca wandered back into the ‘living room’ of their hotel room, and plopped down at the table. "Anything juicy yet?" she asked, and Desmond scoffed.

"Like we wouldn't tell you immediately," he said aloud. "There's not too much in this set. I'm not sure how much help I am for this, Shaun's the one who puzzles the data together, how am I supposed to know what's useful to him? I'm just doing the most literal mentions, by the way, you wanna use data to _infer stuff_ , or whatever it is you do, you gotta sort it. "

The thing about feelings, Shaun thought, is that he never knew when he was going to have one. He had to struggle not to let his face show whatever it was that was happening in his gut or heart or _wherever_ , because that simple acknowledgment of his skills from Desmond, with that _fondness_ in his tone, was making him feel a thing or two.

"Don't worry," he said, flippant enough that he was satisfied he wasn't just broadcasting everything, "I was going to later anyway, for _fun._ "

Rebecca laughed, and Desmond joined in. It felt good, tonight, and he knew he'd been right to include Desmond.

Soon enough, he and Rebecca were eating and they all traded the stupidest conspiracy theories they'd either heard or could make up.

Shaun hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. It was the best evening he'd had in a while, and he realized as he was laying down to try and sleep that this didn't have to be as hard as he'd made it for himself. This could be enough.

~

While the Juno archive they were assembling was huge, it couldn't be the only thing they focused on. The world stopped for no one, after all, and it wasn't like Abstergo wasn't still doing shitty stuff while they tried to figure out just one of the pies they had their fingers in.

There were more missions that Desmond could do little in - non-digital infiltration was something he couldn't assist with.

Unless and until he learned to move over wireless networks, but Desmond was still hesitant to fully try it. Making progress, but hesitant to trust his entire self to the wireless void.

Not that Shaun blamed him - it sounded bloody terrifying. Personally, he'd much rather Desmond be safe than even more effective than he already was.

Though, he would like having the option in case one of Desmond's infiltrations was compromised. Or his case stolen.

Still, they made it work. They made it work very, very well. It was tiring, always being on the move, but it was hard to complain when they got such spectacular results.

One day, Desmond decided he was ready, he was going to try accessing the wireless network.

"In this room only," he said, though Shaun wasn't sure Desmond would even be able to know where he was physically. They'd been hoping for this, so they had the hardware on hand already for a strong local network that they felt as safe as they could trusting Desmond's entire existence to.

Rebecca informed Desmond of the details while Shaun retrieved and set up the equipment. It wasn't exactly a labor-intensive process, but Shaun just wanted to make sure, okay? Rebecca would double-check it anyway before they gave the ok for Desmond to try it.

Once he'd finished the setup and both the first and second tests successfully, he swapped places with Rebecca, who double checked all the connections and started running a test of her own while Shaun made sure Desmond knew what he had to do.

Yes, again, because Rebecca had already run him through it as well.

He double checked the wireless-only laptop, as well as both of their phones, just to make sure they had every angle they could think of covered.

He knew this could still go wrong - they all did - but Desmond said he wanted to risk it, and there was no longer any reason not to.

Rebecca gave her ok, and stepped back from the wired laptop to grab her phone before sitting at Desmond's case, the diagnostics up and running on the screen.

"Whenever you're ready, Desmond," she said, and Shaun, despite himself, held his breath.

"Here goes," Desmond offered, and that warning was almost worse than if he'd gone for it without.

Then they waited. Rebecca nodded at him after a second. "Unless he's hiding from me, he doesn't seem to be in here anymore," she said, quiet like she thought her voice might somehow disturb Desmond's concentration.

Shaun nodded back, but hadn't released his breath yet. After a few tense, silent seconds, Desmond's laughter came out of the speakers on his laptop.

Shaun let out his breath in a relieved sigh. He hadn't realized how tense his shoulders had become until he lost that tension, and he laughed softly, joining both Desmond and Rebecca, who'd joined in before he could.

"Guys, that was terrifying," Desmond said quietly. "Oh man, but... I'm okay. There's... There's so much there to... To exist on, I guess. It's huge. It's so huge."

Then he got quiet, and although there were no cues to tell him such, Shaun felt it was a thoughtful silence. Rebecca glanced at him and he shrugged, then Desmond continued.

"There's.. There's more than I can describe. It's like it's too big. I don't think it's only us, our networks. I think there's something else, something bigger underneath it all."

He glanced to Rebecca and she shrugged. "Were you in danger of losing yourself?"

"No," Desmond replied, and his tone was thoughtful that time. "It was... More like I was in danger of getting lost. I was afraid I'd just... Cease to exist somehow, like I'd drift away on invisible wind or something. But... there’s just so much space, even though it’s not empty. Like the ocean, like you jumped a thousand feet off an island and you don't know how to even find the nearest shore. That's where I went first. Then I found our network, and your devices. It's... That's not quite right, but I can't describe it better than that."

"Do you want us to wire you back?" he asked, and Desmond laughed softly.

"No, I think I've got it now. I just went too deep at first. But I don't think I'll ever just disappear like I was afraid of. Get lost, maybe, but... I think I know how to find my way back."

Shaun was a little relieved at that. "Well, if you're ready to go back, maybe we'll try to see if we can't track you somehow," he offered, because it might be possible, if difficult. It was hard enough to discover him in hardware, so he wasn't certain they'd be able to do it just based on watching the network - especially not if Desmond wasn't even on the network at all, and was trapped in the Grey somehow.

"Sure," Desmond murmured. "I'm gonna try to poke at your phones before I 'land', so you'll have some time," he said, so smugly Shaun knew he'd be grinning if he could.

Shaun nodded, and pulled up the program that scanned Wi-Fi signals. It wasn't normally used for this, but it was something they used occasionally when staying in an area that Abstergo had a very large presence in.

He wasn't able to find Desmond at all before his phone went crazy with notifications. He checked, and couldn't help smiling. The texts weren't as legible as Desmond's typing usually was, but it was definitely Desmond.

Rebecca's phone was silent, but she was holding it and smiling widely, so Shaun assumed Desmond had started using notifications to remind him to check his phone. Scrolling up revealed he had received a few of them before he'd heard the first notification.

**) testi**

**T es ttt**

**Testing**

**Testing**

**123**

**, this is def fintly Shaun's phone**

**Shaun!**

... And so on, grammar and spelling gradually improving until he was just mocking Shaun, basically.

Shaun finally replied, a short _well the test seemed successful_ and received a thumbs up emoji.

Then nothing until Desmond's voice came from his case, laughing and more excited than he'd sounded since just after their first successful mission.

"You guys, oh man! Cell signals are different enough that it took me a minute, but I found them! I learned so much just from this! Guys, this is... Huge. I'm gonna be able to help out so much more with this!"

Shaun felt a little disappointed that Desmond was already looking ahead, to weaponizing his new ability instead of just enjoying the victory, but he tried not to let that feeling show on his face at all.

Rebecca shot him a puzzled look, so he hadn't been completely successful.

"Well, you don't have to, you know," she pointed out to Desmond. "You could just use this to visit your parents and avoid the risk of Skype, I mean, Shaun, could you find him in the network?"

Shaun actually startled a little, because he'd forgotten to check again after he'd picked up his phone due to Desmond's texts. He cleared his throat and turned to the laptop, and smiled. "Not before he left the network," he said. "Though I did stop actively monitoring it once I received a million texts, the tool continued to scan and didn't detect him. I suspect I might be able to modify it - being able to detect if you're in a network when communication isn't possible would be valuable. I'm just not sure it's possible. We might have to test more about what you are," he said.

Desmond laughed. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help," he offered, and Shaun nodded.

"Sure, but maybe not tonight, I think I've had all the testing my heart can handle for the day."

Laughter met his statement, and he shut down the laptop before closing it. "Would you care to write up a summary of your experience, Desmond? We can talk more about it tomorrow, whether you write the report or not, but I did call dibs on the shower before dinner."

Desmond made the noise that Shaun was beginning to accept as his verbal shrug. "Sure, I don't mind. It was... It was something. Writing it all down may help me, honestly. I'm not sure how I felt about it."

"No more testing while we sleep, Des," Rebecca warned, her tone playful. Shaun knew she meant it, though, and just didn't want to come off as bossy.

Shaun was about to voice his agreement, when Desmond laughed. "No problem. I'm not sure I want to be out there with no one looking for me. I want to make sure you guys can find me, if possible, before we go further."

Shaun nodded, because that sounded exactly like what he'd wanted as well. "Good idea," he said instead. "We'll work on that tomorrow. For now, I need to shower.”

"Well,” Rebecca said, laughing, “I didn’t want to say anything…”

Shaun left the room to Desmond's laughter. He wasn't sure how he felt about the day's events yet, but he knew there was no going back now.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a very lovely comment about how things were starting to look up, so I wanted to just give a heads-up: this chapter swings right back into the angst!

They ran tests for weeks. They were sometimes able to detect Desmond in WiFi signals, but only by looking for a particular pattern of activity, and it had to be at the right time at the right ‘place’ with the right settings or it wouldn't work. Which was unfortunate, because they wouldn't always be in a position to scan actively for him with all these caveats.

Still, it was something. They were working on a cellular version of that searching program as well, but had even less success so far.

Desmond sent them texts now, all the time. He knew they shared what he said sometimes, but that was only natural. It still felt nice to be able to have private conversations, more so than the ability to freely contact anyone outside their team had been.

He knew the two were kind of sad or disappointed or something that he wanted to get right to work, and he even thought he might know why, but he'd rather help out than do nothing. Especially when he had such an incredible advantage.

It would be stupid not to use it.

He understood, a little, where he thought they were coming from, but until one of them said anything to him directly, he'd keep pretending not to know anything about it.

He was also fairly certain he knew how he could find them more easily, if he ever needed to, but he wasn't certain it wouldn't also put a target on their backs that Juno could find. He had a strong feeling that Juno was using the vastness he’d detected ‘underneath’ the wireless networks, what had to be the Grey, to travel the world over, that her appearances to her followers were just as likely to be her as to be a projection of her, and he didn't want to do anything to make his team easier for her to locate, to differentiate from all the other noise that was detectable from down there. Or wherever the Grey actually was.

So he didn't mention it at all, wasn't even sure how he'd explain it to them at all. He wanted to, though, because he was already starting to keep more secrets than he ever really wanted to. His parents had acknowledged receiving information about his body but hadn’t provided the information he’d requested yet.

He didn’t like thinking about that, so instead he focused on the other issue for a good few days of downtime, before he decided to go through with it and felt he had the best wording to describe his intention.

"Hey guys, c'mere. I wanna talk a sec," he said aloud, once he confirmed both were within hearing distance. He saw them glance at each other, curiosity and a touch of concern on their faces, but they both shrugged and moved to sit at the table where he could catch them both in one of his cameras.

"What's up?"

If Desmond could have grinned at Rebecca, he would have. "I had this idea. I'm not even sure it would work, and I don't ever want to even try it unless the situation is desperate, but I think I have a way to find you if I were ever lost in the networks, or the Grey," he said, and the two of them lost the shadow of concern and perked up.

“The Grey?” Rebecca asked.

“Yeah, you remember? I said there was something else, something bigger outside the networks? I think that has to be the Grey, what Juno was talking about.”

They shared a look with each other, one that just reflected his own discomfort with the idea. "Well, go on then," Shaun urged.

"I think I can kind of 'tag' your devices with a bit of myself. That sounds weird, but it's not an active kind of thing, just, like an anchor or a beacon. But... that's why I don't want to just do it. Not yet. I don't want to possibly draw Juno's attention, draw a target on you."

Shaun was nodding, but Rebecca frowned thoughtfully. "I think the easiest solution would be to find if she's done it before, and see how you can detect it, if at all."

"Wouldn't that mean going somewhere Juno wants to return to? That's pretty dangerous," Desmond replied.

"Well," Shaun murmured, "you only need to get near it and put out feelers, right?"

Rebecca grinned at him in a way that Desmond knew meant they had the same idea. "You have a place in mind," he said, and Rebecca laughed at that, and Shaun grinned.

"Indeed," he said. "We've even got footage, so we just need to be able to get you close enough to figure it out."

"I'm not sure it's worth it," Desmond said. "I mean, if she hasn't, that doesn't mean she couldn't. And if she has-"

"It could also mean that you simply can't detect it," Shaun added, brows raised.

Desmond grunted at him, and continued anyway because that wasn't exactly useful knowledge, either. "And _if_ she has, then it's still something that might be worth trying as a last-ditch effort. Which is what I had already decided."

Shaun frowned, like he hated being proved wrong, but he didn't argue back, which was fairly telling.

Rebecca shrugged, though. "Well, it might be something you look out for when you go out then - no reason not to," she pointed out, and Desmond had to agree that the idea had merit.

He said as much, and Rebecca nodded like the subject was already dropped, but Shaun still looked thoughtful.

It was okay, though, they had plenty of time to figure it out.

~

Desmond was ready to go on a solo infiltration mission long before either of his teammates were. He understood, though, because he'd been so terrified before, and even though he felt ready, he definitely knew what it felt like to be the party left behind, with no way to know what happened.

Of course, now even that worry was no longer an issue. If they left for missions he couldn't have helped previously (or truly couldn't help with even now), he could follow them. Sort of. He wanted to play around with it, but he'd promised Rebecca he wouldn't mess around with being wireless while they were sleeping, so right now it was mostly theoretical based on the tests they managed since.

Rebecca was back to wearing her headphones, and Desmond had spent a bit of time just figuring out those signals so he could use those to talk to her as well. Hers were specialized, of course, and she'd inadvertently made it easier by syncing them with her phone via Bluetooth.

That had been an interesting revelation, because he could now use those networks as well, even if it was a small 'network' of just two devices. The best part is, those Bluetooth-connected devices were often plugged into another network, which he was very excited to exploit.

Hopefully soon.

He didn't use her headphones to communicate with her on a regular basis. It had been interesting for a test, but there was no way Shaun was going to start wearing headphones full time, so it felt unfair.

Either way, after all the tests and urging, they eventually found a pretty low-risk target; an office building that served as a front for one of Abstergo's many, many secondary businesses.

It was full of internal networks and information, would almost certainly have multiple wireless networks in place he could investigate and infiltrate, and what Desmond felt might be most important to his team members, there was a coffee shop nearby, where two nerds could sit down with a specialized case for the full duration of his mission - no more than two hours.

He wanted to resent these extra steps, but in a way, he really liked it. They were approaching this like literally any mission they went on, with parameters and contingency plans, and he liked that. Since his case would be nearby, he was reasonably certain he could manage to get back to it if things went to shit, so he could warn them somehow. He'd be able to send a text now as well, which he preferred, but in an emergency, he could light up their little beacons, and they'd book it out of there, because they'd know that he was in his case at that point.

It was pretty exciting, actually, and, he realized, exactly what he'd wanted from this. He didn't want to be going rogue with no one knowing what he was up to or where he was. Not really, even though it was sometimes tempting. He wanted to be part of a team, wanted to be cared for and thought of, and not just expendable.

This was much better, even if he would actually have to write reports afterwards.

By the time they left, Desmond was so much more than just ready for this. More importantly, his teammates were ready, too.

The coffee shop turned out to be a Starbucks, which amused Desmond if only because Shaun hated them. Not that he hated coffee (or that he loved it so much that he resented Starbucks for any of the reasons coffee lovers might); he hated that the terms they used were wrong, because he's a pedantic little shit and he can't even do anything about it.

Shaun, however, was a much better actor than Desmond realized, because, according to the security cameras, he didn't even so much as wince when they entered, and he ordered his drink without any eye-rolling or disdain.

In fact, he ordered his drink like he was genuinely looking forward to enjoying it.

It was a little surprising, yes, but Desmond found he liked it for far more reasons than he even had time to think about right now.

That part, well, was not so surprising.

Still, they settled down, Rebecca brought out a notebook and Shaun pulled out an actual hardcover book, and Desmond sent them a text and was off.

It was even easier than he'd expected. The office had multiple wireless networks mostly used by people on their phones, and though all were password protected, that didn't really mean a lot for him, since he could slide around those protections without much effort.

The lower levels were the least important, in terms of valuable data, but he browsed a few emails, ran a couple of keyword searches just in case. Nothing important at all, time to move on.

He didn't need to 'go wireless' after that, since all the work computers were hardwired.

He didn't spend too long on the lower floors, but he did poke around a bit in the accounting department. There was some noteworthy stuff there, but it wasn't the pay dirt he was really after, so he copied the stuff he thought Shaun might find the most interesting and moved on.

This campus was the home base of the company's vice president, and his office was Desmond's true goal. He wasn't sure how likely it was that the man might have some important information here - he wasn't even sure the man was important enough to even be able to access the kind of data they were after - but once he breached the tighter security around the work computer, he had exactly the kind of information he'd wanted.

Not necessarily anything truly new or huge, but not only did he get a few pings on the keywords he'd assigned to Juno stuff, he also learned a few more. Apparently, they were referring to her as their "esteemed guest" in all of their official emails, and “Regina” when they used a name for her. Shaun would love that, he was sure.

But, more importantly, he got the names, emails, and metadata for all the contacts in the vice president's outlook.

That was pretty huge. He was certain the other two could use the data as well, but he knew he could trace these emails across networks if he truly wanted to.

He did, but not yet.

Juno wasn't super relevant to this particular campus, but the president of this company was involved in moving around security details in accordance with her orders, maybe? Requests? The information here didn't really enlighten them as to the context of the relationship between Juno and Abstergo, but he was positive it was still helpful.

He copied everything, even the boring looking stuff, because hell, wasn't Shaun's specialty proving that boring looking things could actually be awesome? And attractive?

Wait, no, _just_ awesome.

When he had all he needed, he extracted himself from the system, double-checked that he'd left no digital fingerprints, then made his way back to his case. Total mission time? Just under an hour and forty-five minutes, well within parameters.

He sent both of them a text ('ok', their pre-determined code word for 'all is well, please leave at a leisurely pace'), and watched from his case as the two of them started packing up calmly.

On the way back to their hotel room, Shaun grumbled that they should stop at a 'real' coffee house just for the principle of it.

Desmond and Rebecca teased him about his stuffiness, and everything in that trip back felt right.

He was getting closer to being completely okay with that.

~

Of course, no moment - no matter how perfect - could last forever. Desmond knew he was on borrowed time, it was just, it was just easy to forget when everything was going so well, and only got easier the longer things were good.

The data he'd gathered had been good. More than good, even. It fed more missions, for all of them, some as a team, some as the two humans, and some as his alone.

It led to more and more information on Juno, and Shaun was thrilled like Desmond hadn't even seen before. There were so many pieces, he'd said, then sat down at his workstation and proceeded to ignore both of them for hours.

The thing is, he knew they were farming data at an incredible rate, focused on Juno and her movements. The real kicker was that he hadn't realized how closely Juno's information tied to his own.

_Of course_ Shaun was the one to figure it out.

It was an evening like many others, Shaun resolutely ignoring anything but the screen in front of him, and any mug of tea placed in front of him for as long as It was still warm.

He let out a shout. "Becca, Desmond, come see this!" he said, actually stepping back from his machine.

As a rule, Desmond didn't really touch their stuff even if he was no longer anchored to the case anymore. He texted sometimes, but spoke aloud most often, and avoided messing with their computers.

But Shaun had invited him, so he made his way over to the device to skim the data available on the screen.

Oh _shit._

There, on the screen, was a still image from a security camera Desmond had been trying not to think about. The one showing his body, hooked up to various machines. The one proving his body was still alive somewhere.

Rebecca gasped, a noise of joy, and Desmond remained silent, because he'd been talking so long now that he didn't remember how not to emote anymore.

He withdrew to his case, because he felt like this would be better for him there. He couldn't physically retreat, and this was the closest he could get to a bedroom, a place he felt safe.

"What does this mean?" Rebecca asked, glancing over to his case. "Is it..."

"It's just my body," Desmond said after a moment, voice as even as he could make it. "Persistent vegetative state. No cognitive activity."

"But alive! Des, we could bring you home!" she crowed.

Shaun was silent, a small, thoughtful frown on his face that Desmond knew meant trouble. Big trouble.

"Funny thing, that," he said, eyes narrowed as he looked to Desmond's case. Right into the camera facing him. "It's stored at a medical testing facility. One we've been to before."

Rebecca frowned in confusion, then turned to Desmond as the pieces started to click into place.

Desmond sighed, because he really wanted to. He really wished he had that body to sigh in, because replicating the sound wasn't the same, really.

"I know," he said quietly, and while he wanted to, he couldn't quite look away from the two as he said it.

Rebecca recoiled slightly, and Shaun just clenched his jaw, visible from across the room.

"You've known since then," he said, cold and factual. "You've hidden this from us for months, Desmond."

Rebecca frowned. "Why would he do that?" she asked Shaun, then turned to Desmond. "Why would you do that?"

Desmond hesitated. He hadn't felt like this in a while, and he'd forgotten how awful it really was. There were no palms to sweat, no stomach to drop or heart to race or face to flush, and yet the sensations all haunted him.

"The implications aren't good," Shaun said softly, and Desmond knew what he meant, knew that they might start to doubt him now, to doubt him again.

"I know that! I do, that's... That's why I told my father," he said, and did actually block the view from his camera after that statement, because he knew that wouldn't go over well.

He didn't block his microphone, and he heard Shaun's explosive, furious scoff, and Rebecca's gasp of disbelief.

"What the fuck, Des?"

At least she was still calling him by name. "I knew you'd want to retrieve it. There's... It's not worth it. I have all the data from the center - the body is heavily, heavily guarded. Even accessing the information was more difficult than anything I've encountered - before or since."

"Of course we want to retrieve it!" she spat, and he accessed the camera again. Shaun wasn't visible on any of them, actually, and Rebecca was pacing back and forth in front of the table he'd been set on.

"I know! And, it's not worth it! Not only is it heavily guarded, it's basically brain dead and has been this whole time, and we don't know how to get me back inside it!" he hissed.

"Even so!" she argued, but didn't actually provide any arguments against the points he'd given.

Shaun walked into the room, hands in his pockets, looking absolutely, devastatingly furious. "William confirms this," he said quietly. Calmly.

If Desmond could have swallowed, he would have, just at that tone, at the look in Shaun's eye.

"You kept this from us," he said, slowly, like he was considering his words very carefully as he said them.

"Yeah, I, I did," Desmond agreed, because he had. What else could he say?

"We're your team! You don't keep things from your team! I'm so mad at you right now!" Rebecca threw out and stalked out of the room dramatically.

Shaun was silent, though he'd sat down at the table, near Desmond.

"I'm sorry," Desmond offered. "I thought it was the best thing to do."

"You're lucky I know you're stupid, or else this would look very bad for you," Shaun spat at him. Whoops, there goes the sensation of a wince he couldn't physically express anymore.

"I know. I thought of that. I asked them to work on it, to bring me arguments that would show you it wasn’t worth it! I wasn’t sure you’d listen to me, but I thought, if the _Mentor_ told you it was impossible, you’d listen. They hadn’t… they haven’t gotten back to me yet. Every time I ask, they say they’re still working on it."

"He told me that, too," Shaun confirmed. "After everything, Desmond, I just don't understand why you couldn't trust us."

"It's not that! I just... _I can't stop you_. I can't... You can walk away from me at any time, and yeah, I can leave this case _now_ , but I couldn't back then. Even with that, though, I still can't do anything to prevent you guys from trying anything stupid. And I couldn't be sure you wouldn't. It's not... It's not about trust. It's about the fact that I can't protect you, not really."

Shaun looked kind of shocked at that, and looked down at his hands.

"This changes things. You know that."

"Yeah, I do," Desmond said quietly. "I... I will leave, if you want. Just, please, don't go after the body. It's not worth losing even a single person, and you'd need an army, even as good as you two are."

Shaun just shook his head, and stood up. "We're not making any decisions right now, and we're not leaving you here, but I don't think either of us can be here right now."

He made sure to set his phone down on the table in front of Desmond's camera, just to show that he didn't trust Desmond not to snoop on them.

That hurt. It hurt more than he'd expected. He knew something like this was inevitable, but he hadn’t realized how long it had been, he thought he’d have more time. He’d forgotten how much hurt he could still feel, and how he had no way at all to express it anymore, to really feel it.

He never thought he'd miss crying, but, well. He did.


	20. Chapter 20

Shaun regretted setting his phone down the moment he'd done it. He’d known exactly what kind of message that sent, because that was what he’d intended; he had wanted to make Desmond hurt. And while he knew his action had hit the mark, he hadn't even had the terrible satisfaction of seeing that hurt made visible.

He stalked into Rebecca's room, because he knew she'd be in there; and she was, pacing furiously next to her bed.

"Becca," he said, more quietly than he wanted to, but he wasn't angry at Rebecca, so he wasn't exactly going to yell at her.

She stopped and looked at him, and her face couldn’t stay still, like she was feeling too many things and had no way to separate them, to express them.

He sighed, and shrugged, and she threw up her arms. "I can't believe this!" she hissed, and Shaun nodded. "I can't believe he'd hide this, he'd lie to us about this. For months, Shaun! _Months!"_

Shaun nodded. "I know," he said. "It... Did you read much of it?"

"No," she said. "No, I didn't have a chance to, why?"

"Because the moment my eyes saw the image, I... I still didn't doubt who he was, even though we could have. Should have? I don't know."

Rebecca straightened, tense like she hadn't even considered doubting Desmond, even with this kind of evidence, and Shaun held out his hand.

"Abstergo's own notes confirm what he'd said. William's own independent investigation confirmed. He's, the body has been in that state since they picked him up. Never once shown a trace of consciousness."

Rebecca sagged in relief, and sat down on the bed, looking almost small. He moved to sit beside her, patted her thigh in a way he knew was awkward, but felt was better than offering no comfort at all.

"I'm so mad," she said, quiet, but he knew it was true all the same.

"I know," he said. "Me too. The notes I found were extensive. I know what they want his body for," he added, and he had, briefly, thought about withholding that information from Desmond, but he hadn't. It was still there, in his open laptop, and Desmond could browse it if he wanted to.

Rebecca looked up at him sharply, and he shrugged. "Juno wants it." That didn't actually take any of her confusion away, and he laughed.

"I think that means Desmond is wrong. I think she knows a way to get inside that body."

Rebecca immediately went into thinking mode, anger set aside, but not forgotten. "She's not just going to tell us, and likely she doesn't want Abstergo to know until she's already in him... I mean," she paused, then shook her head. "What else do their notes say?"

"They're still harvesting samples, farming them out to Animus users, and that this is their biggest bargaining chip with Juno. I haven't read _everything_ yet."

Rebecca sighed. "On the one hand, I am so furious I could chew through steel right now, but on the other... Shaun, I want him _back."_

Shaun smiled at her. "Me, too," he said, because he was, and he did. More than he knew how to convey, more than he really wanted to acknowledge. "Want to get him back, and then kill him," he added, and she laughed just like he'd intended.

"What about the short term?" he added. "How are we going to approach this? We need to trust him, and... I honestly do think this is the only thing he's kept from us, and he _did_ tell his father."

She nodded. "You're the one that's seen the most of the data," she said. "I dunno, I mean, things have been so great until this, and we had no clue."

Shaun nodded. "William said he'd condone any action we wanted to take," he told her with a scoff, like they needed his permission.

"What?" she asked. "What action?"

"If we wanted to send him away - to William, or Catherine, or another cell that could use him and was willing. There are a lot of options."

She was quiet, and Shaun knew she was honestly considering all the options she could see. He let her take the time, because honestly, he needed it too.

He was so angry; furious hardly seemed a strong enough descriptor for the feeling. But even with that anger, he understood where Desmond was coming from. Even at that moment, he was still contemplating their options for retrieval - and from the small amount he’d read, even he had to admit their chances weren’t good.

William had told him they'd looked into it, at Desmond's request. He said he'd forward the information they had, but his tone already told Shaun everything he needed to know about the full scope of the situation. He hadn’t answered Shaun’s query as to why they hadn’t given Desmond this information, but Shaun got the feeling William might actually be trying to verify things other than the viability of recovery first.

But if retrieval _had_ been possible at all, this conversation would have been made unnecessary by the successful retrieval of Desmond's body, by William, _months_ ago.

And yet, the idea that Desmond could have just stayed silent this whole time, that he'd lied to them, even if by omission only... Well, it made him angry.

Desmond didn't necessarily 'need' their case anymore - he could exile himself to his father or mother or anywhere else on the planet. On the one hand, if Desmond chose to do it, it would take the choice out of their hands.

On the other, he didn't want Desmond to choose to leave them. Even if he kind of wanted Desmond to go away right now.

Rebecca nodded, and Shaun hoped she had a more concrete answer, because he'd only just gone in circles.

"I don't really want to send him away," she said quietly. "I... I don't want him gone, I just want him to understand," she said, and Shaun realized then, that he did.

Desmond _did_ understand.

"I think he already does, Rebecca," he reminded gently, and she frowned harder.

"C'mon," he said, before she could speak. "This wasn't revenge. He wanted to protect us. The circumstances are different, but..." Shaun sighed. "I can see where he was coming from. It’s not all that different from what we did, is it? But even now, I want to at least look into it, see if there's something he missed, or that William missed."

"William?"

"Yeah. He looked into it. He said Desmond had asked him to, but honestly, I think he knew William would have done it anyway. I think… I think he’s re-evaluating everything, honestly."

She bit her lip. "Probably," she murmured. "This sucks."

"Yeah, well, that's family for you," he replied, and she chuckled.

She side-eyed him harder than he felt the situation required. "Family, huh?"

"Yes," he said firmly, standing up. "Family. It's what we've got. So let's go yell at him, make him feel bad, and then forgive him. It's what families do."

"God, I've never wanted to meet your family as much as I do now," she said, and Shaun rolled his eyes. He was smiling, though, and while he was still mad, he already felt a lot better about this.

"Believe me," he answered, "you really, really don't."

~

They didn't quite get to yelling at Desmond like Shaun had suggested.

There was some yelling, yes, but there were more heartfelt conversations and promises and even a few tears that left everyone pretty hopeful by the end of the very long night they spent talking.

There was a little bit of guilt on both sides, but mostly it was exhausting, and he thought hopeful really was the best outcome they could reasonably expect from the whole experience.

Desmond hadn't disappeared like Shaun had more than halfway feared after he'd left the room, and Shaun felt bad that he'd ever wanted Desmond to hurt, when they'd basically done the same thing to him not that long ago.

But eventually, they fell back into rhythm. It helped that they had a common goal to focus on whenever conversation faltered; there was always work, always more information to sort.

Shaun was actually really enjoying this work - he didn't often get to work on a puzzle this big, and it only grew bigger the more pieces they found. Juno had her hands in a lot of pies, a lot more than he felt Abstergo even realized. She had her own cult following, which were occasionally acting against Abstergo’s interests - and the interesting thing was, Abstergo and the Templars either knew and were allowing it, or didn't know and were being duped.

Either option had great potential for exploitation. Also entertainment, but exploitation would be better.

So far as he could tell, his theory that Juno wanted Desmond's body seemed to be spot on. They had yet to have access to any actual communications from Juno herself (aside from some weird Animus messages that Shaun refused to address), so they were extrapolating based on emails, memos and notes from Abstergo staff themselves regarding the issues that involved Juno.

He was almost certain that at least two fairly high-ranking Abstergo agents were actually working in Juno’s interests now, but he wasn't certain to what end yet.

But the evidence of her interests made him think he wasn't so far off about Juno's plans for Desmond's body. He was almost certain that was a backup plan, however. Maybe even a backup of a backup.

But his gut told him that he was on the right track, and not only did the pieces all fit, they were forming a more complete picture over time. They just didn't have _enough_ yet.

For him, the next logical step wasn't really Abstergo, as crazy as it felt to even think. They needed more information, information only her cult might have. 'Instruments of the First Will' as they called themselves.

He knew there were Templars that had sworn themselves to her service, and he was fairly certain they were using Abstergo's resources to achieve her ends.

He'd be an idiot not to consider that some Assassins had fallen under her sway. And perhaps it was bragging, but Shaun was not an idiot.

However, the Assassins were still operating under the Garden Rooftop Protocol, with communications severely diminished. There were few resources at the Assassins' disposal, and even fewer at Shaun's. Auditing the Brotherhood under these conditions would be nearly impossible, especially without the Mentor's permission or assistance.

Maybe the cult's situation was the same. There was no way to know without looking, of course.

The thing was, they had no information on where this cult could be found.

There was an easy place to start looking for _that_ information, though, and gather any updated intel the Templars had on Juno at the same time. Well, for a given value of ‘easy’, of course, and that _did_ mean returning to Abstergo Entertainment HQ in the end. Juno herself had been there around the same time Shaun and Rebecca had been setting up their informant on the inside, and they’d managed to get quite a few helpful files from their little mole in that time as well. 

Who knows what information Abstergo had gotten since? Shaun had also heard that the Templars had done some recruiting directly from their “Memory Analysts”, which made sense since it was basically a simplified version of their Animus Training programs, and they controlled almost every facet of their employees’ lives anyway. Wouldn’t be hard to use their psych profiles, backgrounds, whatever pressure points they had to recruit the best of the bunch, either by lying, bribery or threats. 

But that also meant that Abstergo Entertainment had only gotten more firmly embroiled in Templar business, and their security, both digital and physical, was more than enough to deter most attempts at intrusion; even after the Assassins had gotten _some_ data, much of it remained out of their hands, and Shaun knew they’d be able to store much more than just ‘corporate IP’ or whatever crap they claimed they were protecting.

He and Rebecca weren't going to be able to infiltrate Abstergo Entertainment again since their first getaway was loud and noticeable, _and_ Abstergo had beefed up their security as a result, but Desmond... He'd be able to infiltrate easily enough. Shaun knew that all of their personal devices were wireless enabled by company policy - and there was no way they’d changed that when it gave them so much access to and power over their employees - so Desmond would have no issue infiltrating their networks.

There were a few considerations, however. First, it might be a longer-term job than any that Desmond had attempted before. The data they wanted likely wasn't on the usual Abstergo systems, but personal devices (unless, of course, the person in question was an idiot, which they couldn't discount of course, but they definitely couldn't count on, either). But combing through that much data - they'd never had Desmond infiltrate a location that dealt with this volume of data before. That wasn't a comment on Desmond's skill, but rather on his and Rebecca's disinclination to be far from where Desmond would be spending a lot of his time. They might need to do some missions of their own (cough, Rebecca, cough).

Second, and much more importantly, Juno had been there before. Since the result of her actions had been so disastrous for her, and much more ‘public’ than she seemed to want to be right now, she might not have any desire to return here. But this location was Abstergo's biggest memory farm, and even if they found no information on Juno, it was unlikely that they'd find nothing of value at all - to Juno, or the Assassins.

Which meant that while it was a dangerous place, it was a good place to start, and their first order of business would be to find out the location of John Standish' s personal belongings.

So, he had a target, a goal and a plan. Now he just had to convince the other two.

~

Like he had guessed, Rebecca's main objection to his proposed mission would be her own inaction. It had been a few years, yes, but Abstergo had a long memory and hands in quite a few government institutions.

They'd need money as well, which was a concern. The Brotherhood wasn't without resources, but it wasn't going to bankroll an apartment in downtown Montreal for who knows how long.

Shaun's side jobs were able to be done anywhere, but Rebecca's skills were all much more hands-on, and nobody on their team (including a loudly protesting Desmond) wanted to see her go off on her own for anything, especially if it would take her outside the city.

She wasn't exactly excited at the prospect of getting a 'real' job, either. Shaun suggested she moonlight as a barista, and only got a balled up piece of trash thrown at his head in return. (She'd _missed_.)

So, that was a problem. Desmond, however, was excited at the idea. Whether it was because it was a mission that not only centered on him, but needed him, or perhaps a chance to glance at all the data Abstergo was using for ‘entertainment’, Shaun couldn't say. It didn't even matter, really.

Since they all agreed the mission was a good one, they started making their way to Montreal, bickering on the way about the fine details. Even though driving for that long was exhausting, Shaun still went to bed every night with the feeling of having had a good, fun day.

In the end, Desmond and Rebecca browsed Craigslist for jobs and flats, and found both. There was a small 2 bedroom flat not too far from the Abstergo Entertainment complex that would be well within their budget, especially after Rebecca started her new job.

As a mechanic in a locally owned car repair shop.

She genuinely seemed excited about the job, which made Shaun feel a little better about this situation - and, he suspected, Desmond as well.

It had been a while since she'd had to use those skills, but she'd interviewed with the owner of the shop, and he'd been impressed enough with her answers to his questions that he was willing to take her on both as a flexible part time employee and help her brush up on her skills - both with cars and with the French language.

Shaun had gone with her to the interview itself, and it had been entertaining to listen to - her cover story was that she was staying with some extended family while she fled some circumstances in America that she'd prefer not to talk about, then eventually confessed she was going through a long divorce and might need to return to America to finalize things, and by the end she had a job and a promise of protection from any strange men asking her business should they stop by. Shaun was kind of impressed - he forgot how good she could be at this kind of thing when she really put forth the effort.

Then, of course, she teased him about being the homemaker, and Desmond had joined in with such glee that Shaun wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.

Still, it was fun. They weren't quite back to where they'd been before, but they were on their way to better, and they all knew it.

He honestly couldn't wait.


	21. Chapter 21

For Desmond, the Abstergo Entertainment facility was an unusual experience. He could see exactly what they'd done with his data - what they were still doing, because even after more than 5 years, they were still drawing and testing samples for more memories. Apparently, he was a genetic motherlode.

On the one hand, they weren't really 'his' memories; he didn't have any sort of right or claim to them, and other people on this planet certainly held some of the DNA that Abstergo would need for samples. But on the other hand, he still didn't want to see them used and exploited like this.

Honestly, the fucking movies and games infuriated him more than anything else. It wasn't enough to just use the information to try and control the world, no, they had to _profit_ from it as well? Like, what the everloving fuck, right?

He wanted to destroy every last piece of data this place held, but he knew that he couldn't do so until they'd found what they were after. He'd float the idea past the other two once he had some actual, useful information in hand.

His first few forays were very tentative. He tried to scan the area for any signs of Juno, which was super difficult because he didn't even know what he was looking for. After his external explorations didn't bring any evidence she'd been there recently, he tried looking in the Grey, but he couldn't really interpret that information well enough and wasn't willing to risk going any deeper than just ‘looking’ in.

He relayed all of this to his team, because he both wanted to be as transparent as possible, and because he genuinely wanted their help.

Since the mission was important enough, he'd still go in, but he'd just be careful, and act as if she might still show up.

Which, again, he had no idea what she could to do him, if anything, so while the 'plan' (if it could even be called that) didn't exactly set him at ease, he felt it was still worth the risk.

So off he went, wirelessly, to infiltrate Abstergo Entertainment.

At first, he just spent time exploring their wireless systems. He didn't access anything, he just felt out the network, looked for vulnerabilities, and any security that might cause problems.

There were a lot more of the former than he felt Abstergo realized, and about as much of the latter as he'd expected, based on previous missions.

This place was actually much less secure than he expected, and maybe that meant that important data wouldn't be kept here after previous actions (including Shaun’s brief stint as a barista in the Templar’s _lobby_ ), but apparently that was not the case, or it hadn't been like 5 years ago.

If it existed, that stuff might be under tighter security - he'd certainly seen what they could do in that regard.

Part of him felt like maybe he should go for that stuff first, and scan the least secured data later, if he wasn't caught, but on the other hand, Shaun was pretty persuasive that the employee directives for the data they were searching would provide some good clues as to some of the Templars' current objectives.

Even if they weren't going to follow up on it, he argued, another team could.

And that was enough for Desmond, as he could see that there were different groups of employees farming different memories. Their main goal would give the Assassins possibly only one lead, or none, but this? This could give far more, and with much less risk.

So Desmond spent a few days digging around in the employee tablets (super insecure, as it turned out, and a lot of employees were definitely not complying with the security policy checklist stored on that same device) and workstations (which were more secure, but not by much).

He found a lot of interesting information in those days, but he wasn't as interested in parsing it all out and putting it together - that was Shaun's job, and he'd be much better at it, besides.

He got to see trailers for the newest movie based on his ancestors' exploits, and book excerpts for novels that not only spoke of the existence of the Assassins (in a purely fantasy setting, of course), but did so in extremely hostile, negative terms. _Of course._

He definitely hated it, all of it. These men had fought against monsters and tyrants and were portrayed as the evil they fought against. The Templars were all about bettering humanity, and the Assassins only lived to tear that beautiful dream down.

_Ugh._

He'd decided to work floor by floor, since it seemed that was honestly the way information was stored in terms of importance as well; with the lower floors most easily accessible and bearing the least important data and the upper floors containing less employees, but more security. There was no rush, and his team preferred he go slowly and thoroughly, so that’s what he did. 

Once he'd combed the first floor over the first week, he climbed to the second and third floors. These people didn't _only_ work on memories gained from his data, which he thought would make him a little happier, but it didn't, because the whole process was awful. 

Employees were divided up into groups, the specific reasons or structure for which Desmond couldn’t quite follow. Multiple groups were working on the same data as each other, but with different goals. But what was most interesting were the memories one separate group were working on - they were reliving memories much older than Desmond himself had been, and their goals were much less clear, hardly defined at all. 

What was clear, however, was how little Abstergo wanted to tell them about what they were looking for, or what the data was to be used for.

It was all just vague 'we're looking for ideas' or 'inspiration', but it was also clear they were targeting specific times - or maybe simply specific people. He got the feeling that any data farmed here was definitely much more Shaun's area of expertise, because Desmond honestly couldn't make heads or tails of the stuff they were looking at, or even guess at what they were looking for. 

Nothing on these two floors presented even the slightest challenge when it came to preventing Desmond’s access. There were passwords or whatever, but those might as well not exist for him. The second floor had much more employee gossip, though, and became his favorite floor because one employee had kept pictures of Shaun the barista that she'd taken on the sly to share with her friend in the office.

They were kind of grainy and low resolution, but they were still excellent material to tease Shaun with. That was it, really, all he'd want the pictures for. 

He knew the big server racks were all kept in the basement or lower levels or whatever they were calling it, which was his ultimate target, but on the second floor was an office he'd saved for last among the two floors, a much more secure manager's workstation that had protection on it that he felt was too risky to touch right away.

He decided to go for that before he went to the fourth floor, where it started to get into directors and executives and other dumb titles for people who made way too much money.

Turns out, her workstation was much more secure - the room around it had more security than he'd realized, even. He had accessed the security feeds a little while ago, but he still didn't have a great understanding of the layout of the building in his head. Honestly, whoever had built or laid out this building was kind of crazy, because it didn't seem to make a lot of sense.

Either way, he copied all of her communications, all of her contacts. He honestly didn't know who most of these people were, but the other two might. If not, they could get the information to someone who did. Eventually.

He never got tired of how self-important templars sounded in their private communications. It wasn't always outright, or whatever, but it was always the feeling that he got when reading this shit. And, he couldn't believe they were still using that stupid phrase - in email, no less!

At some point, didn't it stop feeling like a cool secret catchphrase and start feeling corny? He supposed not, to those who made such decisions, but he couldn't imagine Shaun using anything like that on a day to day basis because he 'had' to.

Once he’d finished everything in the secured office, he counted all the stations just to make sure he didn’t miss any before moving to the fourth floor.

The fourth floor was full of boring executives and managers and directors and whatever, and it was all boring as shit. No outright Templar stuff as far as he could tell, but he dutifully copied what he could, contacts and all. Days of combing through the driest financial reports and color-coded spreadsheets, and he almost longed for corny catchphrases again.

It was just after he'd returned to his case one evening and started uploading the data that he realized he'd actually become quite used to this. Used to not having his body, used to this digital infiltration. It didn't come at some important moment, it came as he was monitoring his data upload to make sure he didn't miss anything important.

Shaun was doing the same from his end, or he'd started to. He'd seen the supervisor’s communications and had gotten really excited about that, and wasn't bothering to follow Desmond's progress with an exacting eye.

Rebecca was at work. At her like, _real job_ , fixing people's cars. Or whatever they drove. She loved it. She came home tired and covered in grease and bearing a huge smile. According to her, she'd forgotten how much she loved working with her hands like this.

Despite the fact that they were committing something very similar to (yet far more serious than) corporate espionage, the last few weeks felt wonderfully routine, almost domestic.

Conversations continued to get easier for them all - on Desmond' s part, he'd forgiven them long ago. There wasn't really anything else he had to hide. And he tried to make sure that they knew he wasn't like, snooping around their stuff. He still sent texts, but he never looked at anything else.

That wasn't exactly an easy conversation to have, but he knew it was important that they'd had it. He needed them to know.

Still, if someone had told him, years ago, what would happen If he went through with his decision to buy that damn motorcycle, he'd do it all over again.

He didn't, couldn't, regret anything that had followed, even though he was technically dead, and what was he doing with his pseudo immortality? Stealing corporate secrets. Yes, from a power-hungry secret organization that aimed to rule the world from the shadows, which was very cool of course, but the fact that said secret organization had almost limitless money and resources against their homegrown, cell-operated brotherhood, well, it made him sad, a little bit.

He knew that in this form, he could conceivably last for thousands of years. Juno had, after all, hadn't she? Tens of thousands of years, even!

He didn't like to think too hard on that, though, on what that really meant. For him, it was enough that he would do everything he could to help those he loved most in the world, right now.

~

Originally, Desmond hadn't expected Abstergo Entertainment to yield all that much information. Not really. Shaun had made a good point, about the directives thing, and he'd already communicated some information to other cells in whatever way was their current allowed method of communication (which, Desmond had thought had been none, but honestly, he hadn't even seen how that could work in practice aside from that one time they chased down a particular team that had info they wanted, but like anything that involved humans, no one obeyed one hundred percent of the rules one hundred percent of the time).

So, it had already been worth it early on, but Desmond thought the idea to rent an apartment had been a silly one. But he got it now. They’d been living here almost two months already, and Desmond hadn't even gotten to the 5th floor, much less the basement.

Shaun was so excited about the data. A treasure trove, Rebecca had said, rolling her eyes as she'd handed him his dinner at the workstation he'd set up in his room. He didn't leave it when he was 'onto something', which seemed to happen quite a lot these days.

Rebecca just rolled her eyes and turned on whatever passed for brainless television in Canada. She claimed her French wasn’t great (and Shaun agreed), but she said watching the French-language shows made them easier to watch. Desmond believed it, after watching _her_ watch them.

There were times she came in cranky, sure, but her good days were far more common. Shaun was kind of cranky the whole time, only some of it because he was convinced he was just _this_ close to a breakthrough of some kind.

Then some other data would foul up his theory, Desmond supposed, because it might be a day or two before he was just this close again, and then the cycle would repeat.

He'd returned for the night (even though he didn't sleep, he did it mostly because it eased all of their minds when he was ‘home’ for the night), and was messing with Shaun because he was bored and Rebecca wasn't home yet.

It wasn't as fun as usual because Desmond could tell Shaun was genuinely stressed today.

"Why don't you take a break?" he asked. Shaun was at the 'stabbing his keyboard angrily' stage. This usually preceded the ‘says or does something extremely stupid and upsetting to his friends' stage, and if Desmond could somehow forestall that outcome, he definitely should.

Shaun glared at the camera on his laptop. "I can't just 'take a break', Desmond," he spat, and oh, he was so much closer to the 'says something stupid' stage than Desmond thought, "I've almost got it. If I take a break now, I'll lose it."

"Look, man, you've been going at this for days. Just take a little break, look at something else for a while," he said.

Shaun actually stopped trying to slowly break apart his keyboard with the force of his fingertips alone and got that faraway look in his eyes that Desmond knew meant he'd successfully derailed him.

"Something else," he said, thoughtfully, and Desmond laughed a little.

"Yeah, I mean, I'd say you should catch up on Becca's shows, but you can actually speak French, so..."

But Shaun was already shaking his head. "What? No, I'm not watching that crap," he said, a little more scathing than Desmond thought was necessary. "You're right, I should be looking at other data."

"That's not what I said at all!" Desmond protested, but Shaun was already bringing out the laptop he'd used in the temple, the one with access to the copied archive.

"Well, it's what you should have said," Shaun replied, setting it up and shoving the other one aside. "I can't believe I didn't think of this, of course I should have checked here."

"What are you talking about?"

"The _Temple data_ , Desmond. It's all been copied and the translation software's been plugging away at it this whole time!"

Desmond hadn't quite forgotten about that data, he'd just honestly thought Shaun had handed it off to another team or something, but now that he thought about it, that _was_ a really dumb thing for him to think.

Shaun would, at the very least, maintain a copy for himself.

"So what are you looking for?" he asked instead, because maybe he could help.

"Well, I don't actually know that, do I?" he asked. "But I think I know how to find out. We know what artifacts she's been keeping tabs on, or at least some of them. We know where she's been directing them, we just don't know why. I can start with keywords, see if anything pings," he said.

The moment the laptop was on, Desmond hopped to that device to use to talk to Shaun. He didn't bother tracking what Shaun was doing; he wouldn't understand it anyway, probably.

"It would have been nice of her to leave some kind of diary," he mused, and Shaun actually sort of spasmed at that, and Desmond laughed. "I already checked, believe me. There was nothing like that in there."

Shaun sighed. "Well, of course not," he grumped. "She would have to have been a massive idiot to make a move like that."

"I mean, sure, she couldn't account for me getting stuck in there, maybe, but you guys would've accessed the data eventually," he said.

Shaun gave a bittersweet sort of smile at that. "Sure," he agreed. "But... I'm glad we found you all the same."

"Me too," Desmond laughed. He heard the front door opening, which meant Rebecca was home. "Uh oh, better look busy, Becca's home."

Shaun rolled his eyes, and actually got up to greet her instead.

Desmond knew he couldn't attribute Shaun's change of mood entirely to himself, but he was happy to at least have had a hand in it.

~

If that second floor office had been a treasure trove, the fifth floor office was a hoard of valuable data. Turns out, there was only the one office, but the Chief Creative Officer was a very important woman within the company. _And_ within the Templars.

Desmond made sure to tread very carefully in those files. He was good, but there was a limit to the amount of data he could transport on his own, especially if he was trying to be undetectable. He'd need a few days just to get through and copy everything there.

Shaun was almost manic - his ongoing search of the Temple data was bringing him more pieces with less answers than expected. But he seemed happier, and at least if one project was being frustrating, he had another he could turn to and still be productive.

Rebecca made fun of the two of them constantly. Shaun for his moodiness and Desmond for his limits. Desmond knew he didn't mind, because Rebecca wasn't cruel, just funny. Shaun grumbled, but that's what Shaun did to anything, so that didn't count. It was happy grumbling. Probably.

Once he pulled everything he could from the director's computer, there was nothing left but the basement server racks.

Honestly, they were kind of a let down. A lot of the information stored there was just duplicate information that was stored on the computers on the upper floors, and sorting through it was kind of mind-numbingly boring. But there was some good stuff he found just often enough to make continuing to mine the files worth it.

Except, it turns out, that wasn't all that was down there.

He hadn't expected like, _secret servers_ , but he found them. Special hard-line to the fifth and second floor offices. Desmond was kind of surprised and disappointed at how well they were hidden from him. He'd found them entirely on accident.

The weird thing is once inside, the servers had no additional protections that he could see. That worried him, but not enough to hold off on reviewing the data that could be there.

These servers, though, he could finally feel traces of Juno's presence, which creeped him out more than he could say, and a ton of information that had been gathered so far about "John from IT", the Sage that had been... Trying to get a body for Juno somehow?

Desmond couldn't figure out how that was supposed to work in this location, but it hadn't worked. John's plan, whatever it was, had failed, but all the video recordings and data were here, and Desmond copied all of them immediately.

It also seemed, however, that this place, of all places, held what had to be every scrap of information the Templars had about Juno; information on her that they'd gathered, information she'd provided, and records of their 'agreement'. Which... involved Desmond's body.

Juno wanted Desmond's body. That's why they were keeping it alive. She had refused to elaborate on her reasons, but the Templars weren't all idiots, and knew all about Isu genes, and had theorized what Desmond would have: Juno wanted to use Desmond's body as a vessel. Somehow. The Templars didn't know that for sure, yet, or even how it would work at all.

In return, she had been giving them locations to various artifacts around the world. Which, well, that would infuriate Shaun, because there had been an incredible increase in Abstergo's 'acquisitions' recently that had been confusing as well as upsetting.

But at least they'd know why, this time. That alone would be helpful for the Assassins. They weren't missing some critical new information Abstergo had, they were just missing an informant.

As for the information regarding his body, Desmond didn't have any intentions of hiding this from his team. Or his father, not that he thought Shaun or Rebecca would want to keep that information from him in the first place.

He'd told them he wasn't going to hide anything else, and he meant it. Even if this might make things more complicated, keeping that promise was all that mattered.


	22. Chapter 22

For all Rebecca's jibes about Shaun being the homemaker, he was busier than he'd been in a while. There was so much data to sort through, so much to collate and tie together.

It was exhilarating, yes, but it was also exhausting. He was able to tie more threads together, but he was still left with more loose ends than answers.

Every time he felt like he'd gotten close to something, he reached another dead end.

And yet...

Desmond was bringing back more and more data, and it was somewhat annoying that Shaun had to hand off some of the most interesting bits to other teams just so he could focus on this mess. The mess he'd chosen, yes, but also the mess he couldn’t seem to solve.

He knew it would be worth it in the end. He couldn't explain it, he just _knew._

Today he was sorting through the Temple data, trying to compile information on their artifacts, and their locations. It wasn't exactly going smoothly, but it was going.

He had to scratch off a lot of them, though, as he found that more and more of them had been recovered by Abstergo's acquisition teams recently - far more than they’d managed in years, an infuriating advantage that Shaun couldn’t solve yet, either.

The few times he uncovered one that hadn't been taken yet, he had to pass that information along so some other, luckier team would be able to go out and acquire it.

He may have complained about that. Once or twice.

He knew he could request a vote, request they move on some of these pieces, but the feeling of a big breakthrough hovering just over the horizon kept him working, plugging away at this big puzzle that only seemed to spawn an infinite number of edge pieces, and no corners.

He usually took a break when Desmond returned, mostly because he needed one, and Desmond would provide commentary on some of the things he found.

But Desmond didn't start uploading when he returned 'home'. instead, he asked to wait until Rebecca was home, too.

That meant something big, obviously. Shaun wasn't sure Desmond intended to keep him from speculating, but if so, it certainly hadn't worked.

He'd been bringing back data from the secret servers, some of which involved the events Shaun or Rebecca had had a hand in, but other information that traced Abstergo's strange partnership with Juno.

So maybe it had to do with Juno...

He puzzled on that while idly checking and sorting his search results. He definitely didn't have enough information, but it wasn't like he could stop himself, anyway.

By the time Rebecca came home, Shaun was practically crawling the walls, and Desmond had stopped responding to his attempts to needle him for more information.

Shaun grabbed her before she could even remove her jacket, and pushed her towards the workstation that held Desmond's case and their laptops.

"What? Come on, give me just a second!" she protested, still trying to pull off her jacket.

"No, no, Desmond has news, it's important."

"What is it?" she asked and Shaun could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

"Well, I don't know, now do I? He wanted to wait for you."

Rebecca fell silent at that, and started moving without the need for pushing. He didn't like how she started grinning, though.

"Alright, alright! Desmond, let's hear the news before Shaun has a fit."

Shaun started to grumble at her, but Desmond responded immediately to her voice.

"Great," he said. "Hey, so look, it's not bad, I swear. But some of the information I found today was about Juno. I think, if this wasn't everything he Templars had on her, it must be close. There's a lot here, and--" And Shaun lost his patience.

"For God's sake, get on with it!"

Desmond let out a little cough. "Okay, okay. Abstergo is saving my body as some sort of deal with Juno. In return, she's been providing them with information on the location of artifacts."

Rebecca gasped, and Shaun groaned. Rebecca spoke first, though. "What? Shit, she's really working with them? That makes so much sense! Of course she - wait, why does she want your body?"

"Well, I don't know for sure. The Templars theorize she wants to use it somehow, probably as a vessel for herself, based on the concentration of Isu genes I possess. Possessed. Whatever, there's no mention of how she'd get into it, though, nothing like that, and they don't _know_ whether or not that's even possible. They're just guessing that that’s what she wants at all."

Rebecca pointed at Desmond's case, and Shaun couldn't tell if it was in anger or shock." Des, we can't just--"

"We can't just do anything about this," Desmond interrupted firmly. "She's got a lot of dealings with them, and the Templars also don't really trust her. But, she's given them solid information so far, so they're upholding their end of the deal. They think it gives them leverage over her, but... I don't think that's really true. I get the feeling that whatever it is she's doing with them is like, plan C or D or something."

The room fell quiet after that, but Shaun had already stopped paying attention. Because something about Desmond's words had sparked his brain into overdrive. Often, he didn't need any help to work his 'magic', he was able to put the pieces together on his own in a process that astounded and impressed those around him when they witnessed it.

But sometimes, _sometimes_ he'd need an outside push. A fresh set of eyes, as they say.

And there it was. He had been looking for one thing that tied all these threads together, but of course Juno didn't have just one plan, why would she? She very likely had several going at once. He’d already thought as much, but he hadn’t quite followed the thread to its logical end.

Things were already starting to coalesce into patterns now; the locations of the artifacts that were recovered, the focus on the shrouds, the secrecy around Desmond's body being kept alive...

He jerked into motion immediately; he needed to look at the pieces again, start resorting things because now that he knew he had multiple pictures forming, he could start separating them into their proper places.

He was aware, if dimly, that the conversation had resumed between the other two, and knowing them, they were probably laughing at him right now.

He didn't mind, though - it didn't even matter, because he was going to figure this out, and he was going to figure it out _tonight._

Eventually, Rebecca left. Probably. He must have eaten, too, as when he woke up hours later, slumped in front of his computer, there was an empty plate at his elbow.

His glasses had been taken off for him, and a blanket draped over his shoulders, but anyone could've done that stuff. No need for special thanks or anything. 

But hell, it was almost 6 a.m. anyway, he might as well get started on breakfast. Big news always went better when shared over a meal, anyway.

~

Rebecca rolled in just after he started coffee, half-awake and smiling. He let her pour her own coffee, since he knew she was dangerous before she'd had her first cup, and was only a mild risk before the second.

He paused his podcast, mostly because it would cause Rebecca to ask questions she wasn't even capable of remembering the answers to until she’d had her required ‘fuel’, as she called it. He wasn't alone, though, because Desmond had been keeping him company in the kitchen the moment he'd heard the podcast start.

So he kept chatting with Desmond while Rebecca slowly woke up. Rebecca was usually the one mothering them with breakfast, so it was a little different from usual, but it was still nice.

He saved his revelations for after breakfast. Rude to talk with a full mouth and all that.

"By the way, Desmond," he offered, " _This_ is how you break news to two people at once: Guys, I have some news I’d like to share with the both of you."

Desmond scoffed, because they both knew there had been mitigating circumstances previously. Namely, Shaun himself. But Desmond didn’t actually say anything, so Shaun didn't even have to interrupt him to continue.

"So, I think I have a lead on Juno's plans. Or," he allowed, because he really didn't want to paint himself into a corner with overconfident claims, "some of them, anyway."

He paused there, for effect, but Rebecca just stared at him while Desmond remained silent. Rebecca took a sip of her coffee, then gestured for him to continue. No appreciation for drama, these two.

"Ugh," he groaned, then sighed. "Fine. The fact that she wants your body isn't one of them, anyway," he said. "The important thing is, what information has she given to Abstergo. Or rather, the most important thing is: _what hasn't she?_ "

Rebecca groaned. "It's too early for this, come on!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I interrupt your beauty sleep?"

"Bite me, Shaun."

"No thank you," he replied, but he was smiling and she waved her hand lazily at him. "Anyways, what has she given them? Artifacts, yes, but only ones we know about and have encountered before, _small_ ones, like the Apples, or communication devices. Things that she considers garbage. We know what they can do, most of them, but to her they're nothing but leverage so they keep Desmond's body alive, and, perhaps, to keep Abstergo from looking too closely at how the loyalties of some of their agents may have recently changed."

Rebecca frowned thoughtfully, which was gratifying enough.

"Like the Shroud?" Desmond asked, and Shaun grinned.

"Exactly," he said. "There's more than one, and if she has agents who can grab one when she's ready..." he shrugged, because his friends weren't idiots. "More importantly, we've come across files that reference a Lazarus project. If you brought me proof that Juno was somehow not watching this particular project closely, I wouldn't believe it."

Rebecca nodded. "I mean, if they could build or resurrect an Isu body... They only need a sample of DNA, right? Even a tiny amount... if any Isu bodies are still around somewhere, surely she knows where they are."

"Exactly. But she hasn't led them to any Isu bodies yet. Either the project isn't ready, or she might have realized it won't work, or there are no Isu bodies, or..."

"Or what?" She prompted.

"I don't know. I _can't_ know, come on. Anyway, I plotted out all the sites she'd sent them to, all the retrieval missions, and... Well, there's some holes in this global seek and find," he said. "The next step is to scour the Temple's data with things that might fit in those holes, but it could take a little while."

"Is it possible that those areas just didn't hold a strong Isu presence?" Desmond asked.

"Possible, but the only way to be sure is to consult the Temple database anyway," Shaun answered with a shrug. "I'm not sure I expect a hit on this so soon, though. It's only just started, and there's a lot of data yet to translate."

"What about the agents that are now basically hers?" Desmond asked.

"Well, we'd have to decide what we're going to do about that. Right now, we've got a lot of theories and clues and not much in the way of actual evidence," Shaun said. "We could gather more information - you said this was basically the last of it, right?"

Desmond made a sound Shaun had started to associate with 'yes', like a verbal sort of nod. "Unless something new has been added in the last day, then, yeah, it's all the interesting stuff."

"Thing is, if we focus on Juno's agents, that might put us, and you, in her focus. I'm not sure we're ready for that. We could send the Intel for another team to act on, but then we'd possibly be putting them in her cross hairs and I'm not sure that's any better."

Rebecca frowned. "I don't like the idea of handing it off. This is our job."

Desmond laughed. "Yeah, I'm with her. But what can we do instead of following those agents directly?"

Shaun hummed. "We've got _some_ leads from this data. There are other facilities we could see if you can infiltrate. Much higher priority targets, if we can manage that."

Rebecca grinned at him, because she already knew what he'd been thinking. "The labs," she said, and Shaun nodded.

"They're where Abstergo's most important work is going on right now, and we know that Juno has had a hand in some of the things that are happening there - some of which the Templar leaders know, and some of which I'm sure they don't."

Desmond made a happy sort of noise at that. "I'd be down for that. What kind of labs? Anything like that medical facility?"

Rebecca shook her head, and sighed. "No," she murmured. "Actually, worse. They're pretty terrible places, honestly. You're not going to find anything there you actually want to know."

Shaun didn't bother saying anything, because that really just about summed it up, didn't it?

"But if we find what we need to know, it'd be worth it, right?" Desmond chimes in, and Shaun sighs.

"Unfortunately, yes," Shaun answered. "We do have a few good leads, but these are also locations we have reason to believe that Juno has been active, and fairly recently at that."

Rebecca nodded, slow and reluctant. "Just... If you ever held doubts about what at least some Templars are capable of, about the cost that the Templars agree is reasonable enough for their goals, you'll lose them pretty darn quick."

Desmond was quiet for a moment, then made a small, unhappy grunt. "Why are you guys being like this right now? It almost sounds like you're trying to talk me out of this idea."

He glanced at Rebecca for a moment, and she grimaced at him. He sighed. "Because, we're after a specific type of information. Information that might be invalidated the moment the Templars realize we've accessed it. And the things you'll see..." He trailed off, tried to think of a good way to word this.

"Not doing anything will be harder than any mission you've had so far," Rebecca finished.

Desmond made a thoughtful kind of noise. "What kind of thing could I even do?"

Rebecca laughed, and it honestly looked like she might start giving him a list, so Shaun cut in. "Honestly? It doesn't matter what you _could_ do - it matters only that you don't."

Rebecca shut her mouth, and winced. Then she nodded. "Yeah; what we're after is something that they can move, and then we'll have no idea A) where it is or B) where that information is now stored."

Desmond was quiet again. "And, even if the information isn't at this particular facility, any action could tip them off that they're being targeted, and they could move or tip off Juno, or..."

"'Or', indeed," Shaun agreed. "That's the hard part. We've never been inside any facilities; we've only seen footage or heard accounts."

"Well, what kind of stuff did you find?"

"So, you remember we told you about the Shroud, right? The shroud of Turin? Well, once their doctor, Gramatica, had it in his possession, he started tests. Killing people to see it's capabilities of bringing them back. Not just once, multiple times. Now, he didn’t only do this to his ‘designated’ test subjects; he also did it to his lab assistant, whom he quite liked - who was, incidentally, recently turned to Juno's service."

There was a moment before Desmond made a noise, a sad, angry kind of grunt. Shaun had a feeling that these were for their benefit; without a body, Desmond couldn't frown, or nod, or anything. So where he'd normally do these things, he made a noise instead, especially if he didn't seem to have words yet.

"That's just one of the kinds of things we know about personally, We recovered his own logs via Animus hacking and the Initiates group. There are others just like him all over the world, and the Templars will let him do as they like as long as he unlocks the secrets they're after. "

"Like immortality."

"Like immortality," he echoed, nodding.

"And I couldn't do anything," Desmond repeated, voice dull. "If I saw that, I'd just have to leave it?"

"If we do this, yes," Shaun answered.

"I need to think about this," Desmond said, slowly, like he feared they might say no somehow.

Shaun nodded. "That's fair. Reach out if you have any questions, yeah? I'll work on some research, Becca will do... Whatever it is she does," he said, trying for levity.

Rebecca stuck her tongue out at him, but Desmond said nothing.

Shaun nodded and stood. 'Good talk,' he thought.

~

It was actually harder to give Desmond 'some time' than Shaun would have thought. He'd gotten quite used to speaking aloud and having Desmond answer him, at basically any time of day.

Judging by how often he parted his lips and took a breath to speak, he was apparently quite spoiled by this fact. Desmond wasn't full of knowledge, but he wasn't stupid, and while, yes, it had been very helpful to just bounce ideas off of him for inspiration or boredom, the truth of the matter was that Desmond was just fun to talk to.

It reminded him of the days in the temple, before Desmond died, and Shaun had stopped being such a self-important dick about things.

On the one hand, he wished he'd gotten his head out of his ass sooner. On the other... He knew he was so, so lucky to have even this, now.

In any case, not just talking to Desmond whenever he wanted was proving a little more difficult than he'd expected, but every time he opened his mouth, he shut it again and returned to work. Or got up to walk, anything.

He fully knew the struggle that Desmond was coming to terms with - he'd had his own, many years ago at this point. But Desmond hadn't, he supposed, not yet. To be faced with horror, and the ability to do something, anything about it, and yet having to stay your hand anyway?

It was hell, sometimes. This 'job' wasn't for the faint of heart, but so rarely did someone get to actually choose it. He hadn't, not really (but he would have if he'd had the choice). Lucy hadn't, and had eventually made a different choice. Rebecca had. Desmond had rejected it, then had chosen them again in the end.

But, as tired as the cliche was, someone had to do it. If not them, then who?

His phone buzzed, and he picked it up and unlocked it once he saw it was Desmond reaching out.

**Can we talk? On your phone?**

"Of course," Shaun answered, standing up to move to his room. Desmond clearly wanted privacy for this conversation, and that was an easy enough request to grant.

He shut his door and lay down on his bed, and his phone chirped with the special ringtone Desmond had somehow installed - after he'd asked, because he said he didn't want to poke about in their stuff without their knowledge or permission.

"Hello, Desmond," he answered.

"Hey Shaun," Desmond replied. He sounded hesitant, unsure. "Um, I wanted to talk about the mission. Do you... have time for that?"

Shaun frowned. "Of course. Are you sure you're ready for this conversation, though?"

Desmond laughed a little. "Yeah, just.. How can you do it?"

Shaun nodded, and lay back on his bed. "Well, honestly? I do it because I have to. Someone has to, and if I'm the one in the position to act, then that someone is me."

"But how do you know it's the right thing to do?"

Shaun thought on that for a moment, then took a deep breath. "The truth is, I can't know that. No one can. We can only make the best decision with the knowledge we have. Th-"

"How can doing nothing be the best decision?" Desmond asked, and Shaun smiled softly, because this was exactly the struggle he'd expected from Desmond. He wasn’t the type to just ignore evil in front of his face and do nothing about it.

"Again, we can't know that for sure. If you're asking how I come to that particular conclusion, all I can tell you is that I weigh all the outcomes and pick the one that I decide is best. There won't ever be a perfect answer, and if there is, it's probably because you missed something. "

"But aren't we here to end that sort of thing? How do we accomplish this by doing nothing?"

"We're not doing completely nothing," Shaun answered, but Desmond didn't let him finish.

"You knew this place was here, that it was doing these things, and yet, it's still there! How long has it been there, doing this stuff?"

Shaun sighed. "I don't know off the top of my head. Two, maybe three years?"

"And... you just let it," Desmond said, and Shaun heard the disappointment in his voice. There was... There was real hurt here. Shaun realized he must have accessed files that showed exactly what went on in such places.

"I suppose I did. But Desmond, we are each only one person. My focus has been on other things. If I stopped to right every single wrong on the streets, should I trust that someone else is going to stop governments from trying to strip away everyone's free will? If I take down one facility and end the atrocities there, what does that mean if by that action, I have enabled the Templars to recover another artifact that helps them control the world?"

"But how can we be the good guys if we're letting this happen?"

Shaun knew his smile turned sad. "I never said we were the good guys. In fact, you'll recall, I specifically said we weren't, when we first met."

Desmond made a noise that sounded almost hurt. "That's not what that's supposed to mean!"

"Isn't it?" Shaun countered. "We're willing to kill for our cause, and so are they. Sometimes, we really can't save everyone, Desmond. And it's a hard truth. I won't judge you if it is one you can't accept. Some don't. Sometimes, they find other ways to fight the Templars. Sometimes, they leave. It's not... It's not something I've ever judged anyone for," he said, because he'd been about to say that people who chose another life never got judged, and that was a lie.

But Shaun could honestly say he hadn't judged anyone poorly for that choice. In fact, he'd admired those who held their convictions so strongly. He couldn't say who was the better person, in that situation.

"What about you?" Desmond asked, and Shaun took a deep breath.

"Me? It's a case by case thing; there is no one answer. I suppose the easiest way to put it is that I've come to terms with the fact that the larger victory I've set my sights on might cost smaller victories in turn."

"But they're people, Shaun, they're not-"

"I'm not saying they're not worth fighting for. I'm saying that the cost of the fight _I've chosen_ is that I can't fight other battles as well. And that by doing so, those battles might be lost. I've accepted that. I never said I was a good guy or that I made the right decisions. I only ever said I made the ones I felt were right for me. Rebecca feels the same; it's why we work so well together and why we're still on the same team."

"I don't know if I can do this, Shaun," Desmond said, and he sounded so goddamn sad, like he was already mourning his place in their team, and Shaun felt his heart clench for a moment.

"I understand," he said, after that moment. "I won't ever be the one to ask more of you than you're willing to give, Desmond. There are options. We can find another way, or..." He couldn't bring himself to say it.

"Or I could still leave," Desmond finished.

'"Yeah," Shaun said, and was mostly successful at holding back his sigh. "I hope it won't come to that, I really do, but I'd understand if that's what you felt you had to do."

"And if I couldn't stay an Assassin?" he asked.

"I'd respect that, too," Shaun answered. Then, he took a deep, shaky breath, and because he might not actually get a chance to say it later, "I'd hope we could still be friends, but... It's okay. If, if you can't. It's okay. I promise."

"I need to think," Desmond blurted, and then there was silence.

"Des?" he asked, quietly.

There was no answer.


	23. Chapter 23

Desmond didn't want to go straight to thinking just yet, though. He wanted more information. Rebecca was out, though, so he texted her and asked her to let him know when she had some private time to talk.

She texted a few minutes later that she was available. He found her headset a little while later, and asked, "Rebecca?"

"'Sup, Des?" she asked. She sounded relaxed. He couldn't 'feel' any major electronic devices around her, and if she was at work, he would have expected a few; the reception desktop alone if nothing else, but maybe her work didn't have one...

"Where are you?"

"At a park, with coffee. Took a break."

"Oh, uh, I didn' t mean-"

"Spill it, Desmond. What happened?"

"Uhhh," he started, because he hadn't been ready, and he didn't think his conversation with Shaun had actually gone well. "I... I wanted your thoughts on... On the mission that was proposed."

He could hear her take a sip, and then a breath. "I feel like it's not 100% about the mission," She started. "But it's solid enough. Promising for a lot of intel we could use, but if not us, another team. I think it'd be worth a look around, but.. Just like Shaun says, _only_ a look."

There was a pause, but before Desmond could reply, she continued, "I feel like that's the real heart of the problem for you, though."

"It is," he admitted. "I... I looked at some of the stuff that had been found in the past. I don't know how.. I don't know that I could, I could just..." He didn't want to put it into words, because he'd come across as defensive and that felt wrong to himself, like he'd already judged the two for doing what he couldn't bring himself to do.

"Not act?" Rebecca suggested, and it sounded like she'd have been smiling while she said it. "I get that."

"But Shaun," he began then immediately made his 'no' noise, because that wasn't how he wanted to go about this. That, and he couldn't shake his head anymore. "I mean, how do you do it?"

Rebecca laughed softly. "I feel like I'm going to disappoint you," she said, her voice not nearly as teasing as it had been only moments before. "I trust the decisions made by Shaun and others when planning missions. We'll talk about it, though, if I have questions, and sometimes, things about the mission can change. But sometimes not. All we can do is weigh the options, the outcomes. There are some places beyond our reach because their protections are too much, or it could expose us - and let's be real, Desmond, in this day and age, we'd be labeled as a terrorist organization if we gave them the right ammo. I couldn’t even say they’d be wrong."

She paused to take another sip, and Desmond felt like she was maybe giving him a chance to interject, but he stayed silent.

"I'm only one person, but my decisions in the field can affect so much more than myself. I'm not so good at thinking out consequences on the fly, so I try to stick as close to the mission parameters as possible. I guarantee you Shaun will have plotted out as many possible outcomes as any human could."

She was quiet after that, and Desmond was thankful. He still didn't know what to say. He felt like there were more questions, and he knew she'd answer them, but he felt like he already had the answers, just that he didn't like them.

"But... How do you _do_ it?" he asked finally. "I mean, how do you not act?"

He heard her take a deep breath. "It's not easy, if that's what you took away from that," she offered. "Sometimes it's damn hard. Once I had an argument with Shaun while I was in a janitorial closet. But it's usually being reminded of what's really at stake. I mean, let's talk this through," she offered.

"What?" he asked.

"The mission. You want to stop whatever’s happening there, right? If you see something shitty?” she didn’t want for him to answer before continuing, “So what are we after? Information, the kind that can be tainted with exposure. No guarantee. And on the other side? People, probably suffering as you work. What happens if you try to save them instead?"

"It depends on what I do," he said, after a moment.

"Sure, but let's say you can somehow take out all the Templars, or their agents, and leave the innocents, and break all their equipment, fry their servers. This is exceedingly unlikely, but we can talk through the other stuff later. So now you have a lot of bodies, some or many of whom can't escape under their own power. Those that can, we can't rely on to help the others, as we don't know what's been done to them. Along with a way of getting them out, we need a place to take them. We'll require more than a team of three for this, and we’ll also need to find a secure, discreet location with a trained medical team able to stay on site for however long these people will need to heal."

"I get it!" Desmond exploded. He knew she wasn't patronizing him, and he knew she wasn't attacking his morals, but it sure felt like it.

"No, Des," she said, gently. "I'm not... I'm not attacking you, or your idea. These are just facts, what we will need, and they're not out of our reach. They're not within our reach at this moment, but we can plan around that. This is all that's needed for this approach. If your goals are ‘free the people, shut the place down’, that's probably possible. Is it a better outcome? I feel like this answer will disappoint you, but I'm not sure that it is."

"What if it doesn't have the information we need?"

"There’s the possibility that it might tip them off, and they might know what we were after, and our ability to act later might be limited - as far as the Assassins are concerned, these people are our responsibility the moment we free them. We'll have to make sure they're cared for, and that might be incompatible with any further missions to track down Juno."

"But what-"

"There's another option, you know. Expose the facility later. Steal screen grabs from security cameras. Leak them to multiple press outlets and law enforcement. The downside to this approach is that Abstergo can sanitize the place before anyone sets foot in there. This is likely to mean that those people will simply be killed to get rid of the evidence quickly," she said. Another sip.

Part of Desmond was horrified she'd suggest that at all. He wanted to save them, not kill them! "We might as well kill them ourselves."

"In effect, that's likely what the end result would be," She said. "Some would argue this would be the best option. Abstergo is tainted and has to do some PR magic, but they'll be more on guard for future investigations or incursions. They'll hide their bodies even better than before. And, those people would no longer be subject to the horrors they had been."

"Yeah, 'cause they' d be dead!"

"Yeah," she agreed with a sigh. "If we freed them, though, even if we freed them without violence, somehow, we now have a number of people who are evidence that is both huge and hard to hide. Whether they're found or not, it's unlikely we'd leave zero trace behind, and even if we did, they could still find a way to put the blame on us. Honestly, I'm not even sure why they haven't tried exposing us before now. I imagine it's only because the things we know - mutually assured destruction. That's why we're doing things quietly, why we've all but disbanded the Brotherhood into smaller cells."

Desmond was quiet for a moment. "There's no good answer, is there?"

Rebecca made a thoughtful noise. "Maybe not, but there is a bad one. Doing nothing is an option, after all. But we're not doing nothing. And we can't do anything at all if we're dead."

"I don't know if I can do this," he replied. It hurt to realize, hurt more to admit, but what they were asking, it seemed impossible.

"Then we wouldn't ask you to," she replied, as if there wasn't any doubt at all. "We get the information another way."

"And if I wanted to free them?"

"Then it's your responsibility to figure out how. I think Shaun would help you plan, but I wouldn't put money on material help beyond that," she said. "He's a big picture kind of guy; that's why he's so valuable."

"It makes him a dick sometimes," Desmond grumped. It was childish, maybe, but it really fucking stung that he might have to agree that Shaun was right about this. It didn't feel right.

But she laughed. "It does. Downright insufferable, even. But I wouldn't change him, and I've decided I'm going to follow him wherever he decides to go. We don't always agree, but that's a good thing."

Desmond sighed at her. "Does it get easier at all?"

"I'd be lying if I said no," she said. "It's easier to do, over time. For those of us who sleep, it can still keep us up at night, wondering if it's the right thing after all. Shaun would never admit it, but sometimes he has doubts, too."

Desmond laughed a little at that, would have smiled if he could. It was a little bit of a relief to hear that, honestly. "Does he?"

"Yep," Rebecca replied, cheerful as ever. Another sip, then,"I've been up those nights with him - not always because it's a mission we've done together. He used to provide intel and logistical support to a lot of field teams, even while he was working with us in the warehouse, in Monteriggioni. Everything they carried out, he felt was his responsibility."

"Surely that's not-"

"It's not," Rebecca assured him. "It only works that way in his mind. Nothing is binding. There is no order you can't not follow, if you choose."

"Really?" Desmond asked, because it certainly hadn't seemed that way growing up.

"Really," Rebecca said. "We value free will. Your dad, well, he's kind of an asshole."

"You can say that again," Desmond replied. "Hey, I'm gonna go, I've got a lot to think about."

Rebecca made a noise at him, a happy sounding hum. "Sure thing. I hope I've helped."

"You have," he promised. He felt a little bad, because he'd kind of rushed away from Shaun after their little talk. He'd apologize. Later.

For now, he just had some things to sort out.

~

Desmond did go straight 'home' after that, because he didn't like the unmoored feeling he got when he was too far away from the points he considered 'his'. He wasn't actually lost, but while he could trace messages to devices, he couldn't guarantee that he'd be able to find his way if he were truly lost or confused.

He didn't apologize to Shaun right away - not only did he have no idea what he would say, he really only wanted to do so when he had a decision to follow it up with.

He just had to y'know, decide, that's all.

Desmond felt like he knew his limitations. He had been great at the physical stuff; a pretty good athlete, quick on his feet and able to reassess paths on the fly.

He wasn't an idiot, but he also wasn't the kind of guy that could see every factor, that could plot out every result - even if he had the time to do so, he'd start losing threads.

Rebecca had said they wouldn't ask him, but if he refused and couldn't feasibly rescue those people, then wasn't that as bad as doing nothing at all? He'd be leaving them there, just like... Well, like the Assassins had been this whole time.

Including, he realized, Shaun and Rebecca. He felt like he knew why they hadn't done anything yet, like he had all the pieces to put together the answers, but he still wanted to demand an answer face to face. Or face to camera, whatever.

But they wouldn't force him to take this mission if he didn't want to - and he all but had a guarantee that they wouldn't go for the rescue option.

Which left doing nothing.

Or reaching out to another team, to see if they might be willing. He had no idea how that would even work, but it was still probably something he could do.

If he did, he'd likely be separating from this team, though. He didn't really want that.

On the - what was it, third? fourth? - hand, he couldn't imagine carrying out the mission and actually walking away with information and no action.

Before he'd touched that Altar, he thought he'd had it all figured out. What being an Assassin meant. What _sacrifice_ meant.

He hadn't known anything at all.

Shaun had sounded almost bitter earlier, like he resented that he'd had to choose at all. Not that he resented the choice he'd made, though. It wasn't entirely a martyr complex, but Desmond felt that probably had a little bit to do with it. Shaun did love to bitch.

So, one option at a time then. Say he decided on the rescue. He has to figure out how to get those people out and where to take them. He also has to get people to help him - he can't do much of anything without a body, after all. This would take weeks, months maybe. His responsibility to feed them and keep them safe. To help them recover.

He would need so much help for that. How many Assassins would he remove from other jobs for this one? What resources would he divert from other operations? What ground do they lose against the Templars if Desmond chooses this option? He can't say, obviously. Desmond doesn't even think Shaun could.

But, some things would be lost, that he could guarantee.

Juno might be among them.

What happens if he does the mission as is? They possibly get information on Juno's motivations, insight into her deals with Abstergo. _Maybe._ And the cost is only a few dozen people left for those experiments, whatever they may be.

Those were the two main options, and honestly? Both of them sucked.

If they lose Juno, who knows what she'd be able to do if her plans are unchallenged. They know what she ultimately wants, and if she gets her way, far more than a few dozen people would be tortured. She hates humanity, that's not in question.

Desmond wished he had his body fiercely. He wanted to pace, to grit his teeth and yell and hit things with his fist. There was no way to focus this frustration and the worst part is, he'd known this whole fucking time that he was going to do this goddamn mission and consign those people to their fates.

He bet even Shaun knew what he'd choose. He wanted so badly to resent Shaun or Rebecca for this, but that was unfair and he knew it.

So, an apology, then.

It wasn't hard to find Shaun - he was at his computer unless he was eating, these days. Rebecca was at work, so Desmond just used his speakers.

"Um, hey, Shaun," he started, then trailed off for a moment.

Shaun turned in his seat, just enough so Desmond would see his raised eyebrow, but his hands remained on the keyboard.

Desmond didn't bother holding back the sigh that he still felt a bodily need to expel. "Look, do you have a minute?"

Shaun looked as if he started to actually consider the question, so Desmond huffed. "Look, if you're too busy for an apology, that's fine-"

Shaun smiled a little, but schooled his features quickly enough that the smile must have been involuntary. "No, no," he said quickly enough to cut Desmond off, "I've always got time for a well-deserved apology."

"Harsh, but fair," Desmond replied. "Look, I'm sorry. I guess I thought I knew what it meant, sometimes, when my dad would talk about sacrifice, and duty and what it really meant to be an Assassin. But I didn't. Not really. I knew what Abstergo was capable of. Vidic told me that if he felt I was costing him too much time, he'd put me in the Animus 24/7, with no regard to my physical state. He'd all but done it to Clay. I just.. I didn't really face it, I guess."

Shaun sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "I know it might not seem like it, but I do understand," he said. "People have called me heartless to my face before, you're not the first to think it. I'm not, but that's a talk for another time. I mean it, Desmond, if you can't do this, that's not something I'm going to judge-"

"Oh, I'm doing it, " Desmond said. "It needs to be done. If... If I saved these people, even if I saved all of them and shut down the facility and Abstergo never tested on another person... If I chose that, and Juno got what she wanted, if she won? So many more people would suffer and die. I can't just ignore that. If this is our best bet, I'm going to make it count."

Shaun just looked at him for a moment, looked right into the camera, then his eyes flicked over the case, wearing an expression that Desmond couldn't even begin to interpret. Then he smiled, and it looked a little like relief, a little like pride, and a lot fond. It was, it was a _really_ good look on him.

"Well, I suppose we'd best get to work, then," he said.

"Hold up, I have a question. Rebecca told me that if I wanted to try and save them, you'd help me plan but not pull it off. Was she right?"

Shaun's eyes widened, but then he looked thoughtful. "That's a pretty fair assessment," he said. "If you wanted to run that mission, yes, I think that's about the level of involvement I would have."

"Why? I know you're not heartless, but... Why?"

"Well," Shaun said, taking a breath, "this _is_ about to sound very heartless, but it's a cost/benefit analysis. It would require a significant number of Assassin resources, would put us at significant, ongoing risk, and the benefits - while also very significant, I'm not discounting that - aren't significant enough, to me."

Desmond felt a small pang of disappointment. He couldn't nod, but made his thoughtful hum instead. "Is it hard?" Desmond asked. "To choose that, to look at it in those terms?"

"Not for me, not anymore," Shaun said. "For some, it is. I always look at how I can best utilize myself and the tools at my disposal. If I'm not going to do my best, then why am I here? Whatever way I came into this life, this is my path now, and I'm going to utilize everything I have to the best of my ability to determine. And what I have chosen is the big fight. The Assassins have been around for as long as they have because we understand and respect the value of freedom. Even from our own. There are some Assassins that only do things like what you've proposed; missions with immediate benefit, whether it's to save people from Abstergo's clutches, shut down facilities or take out targets that present a danger to our ideals of Freedom over Order."

"I honestly can't believe I've never asked you this before. You've really thought about it, haven't you?"

"I have. I continue to do so. There may come a time when I choose a different path. Statistically, Assassins do not live long lives. I've determined to make the most of mine, and I'm not satisfied with anything less than the full use of everything I have, everything _I am_ , to that end.”

"Yeah, you've definitely thought about this a lot. They should have you give recruiting speeches."

"Would that be before or after I tell them we're not good guys, and that the hard decisions are not the ones you think they'll be?"

"Okay, good point," he said.

"Let me ask you something, Desmond. You've killed at this point, both as yourself and in the Animus. Was it easy?"

Desmond paused. His ancestors had approached it easily. Altaïr with pragmatism and grim determination. Ezio, whom he'd spent much more time with, had originally been so full of anger and despair, but eventually reached a calm acceptance, a confidence in his ability to choose who must die and who must be saved.

He himself had only killed once; the other deaths he'd caused, he wasn't entirely sure it had been his own decision. But it hadn't been all that hard. It always happened so fast, when it happened.

"I don't know," he said. "With Daniel, it seemed more like a mercy. But Vidic... the Apple... It was talking to me. It wanted to be used..."

Shaun seemed surprised by this. "William told me you used it to have a security guard kill Vidic."

"And then on the guards, to kill themselves," Desmond replied. "Just after Vidic, all of them in that room. It... It wanted me to use it again on the way out, but I didn't let it. I.. I stopped it."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Honestly? I didn't know how to. I... I didn't think my father would have welcomed the information, much less tried to understand. You knew that I thought I'd have to give Vidic the Apple."

"I had wondered when you'd learned to use it like that, but... We had so little time, and you had to get back in the Animus."

"Yeah," he said. "It didn't feel like it mattered, in the grand scheme of things."

Shaun looked uncomfortable, then sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wish there'd been another way."

"Look, it's fine. If I'd thought of it, I'd probably have chosen to kill Vidic on my own. But... It is what it is. It honestly turned out better this way."

Shaun looked like he wanted to say more, but squared his shoulders and nodded once. "Well, either way," he said, voice brusque, "we've got some work to do, yeah? I think I've made a good breakthrough on the Temple data, but it needs to percolate a bit more, so let's get started."

Desmond decided not to press. "Alright," he said, instead. "Let's get to work."

~

After all the planning, all the testing and even some yelling, actually getting to and inside the facility a few miles south of Nogales had been much easier than Desmond had expected. As far as her job was concerned, Rebecca had taken a short leave from work to deal with the American court system, the trouble she’d been fleeing and had yet to fully untangle. They’d given her the days off without any protest.

Beyond that, Desmond had expected trouble at the border, but after only a few questions, answered in Shaun's best 'American Midwest' accent, and an inspection of their documents, they were let through.

The drive had been long, and the first thing they’d done when they arrived in town was to check into one of the safe houses in the city. Immediately after that was the infiltration; they didn't even take the time to unpack. They hiked to within a half mile of the facility, the range at which Desmond confirmed he could find them with ease. Security was supposed to be tight here, so they didn't want to get any closer. 

Shaun set the case down. "Alright, 24 hours," he said. "Send a text when you're on your way back."

"Yes, sir," Desmond replied. He'd have thrown in a salute if he could have somehow, but Shaun only rolled his eyes.

Rebecca grinned at him. "Good luck," she said.

"Alright, I'm going," Desmond said, from the case speakers. "See you in a few hours."

They took the case back with them, because leaving it out would be incredibly stupid. Desmond was fairly confident he could locate them by their cell signals alone, though he wasn't sure he wanted to try. Once he got close enough, he'd be able to detect his case's signal; it didn't 'broadcast' far, but he was so familiar with it that it didn't need to.

So long as he didn't enter the Grey, he'd be fine.

He wished he could sense people when he was wireless like this. He had no idea what the security actually was without that. It took some time to even find a point of entry, actually. There were no internal wireless systems that were familiar enough he felt confident to infiltrate that way. No unsecured phones or computers, no tablets or laptops or anything that Desmond could find.

Eventually, he figured he would have to try to infiltrate one of the secured devices - there were other means of entry, but most devices had automatic network permissions, so he was confident this would be the easiest method to gain access to their systems.

The infiltration went as easy as any he'd tried - like his trial runs, the security he encountered wasn't difficult to evade at all. And also like his trials, it bothered him how easy it was. Part of him was afraid it was a trap of some kind, but he was here to find information, so he didn't waste any additional time before looking for the most secure location on the system.

Thanks to the runs they'd done, he was able to find what he was after fairly quickly, along with the information they were after - or some of it, at least. Juno was in direct contact with not one, but three of the scientists here. There were five projects in progress at this site, and Juno was involved with three of them.

As far as Desmond could see, no employee had access to any information or data from a project other than their own. They definitely felt confident that no one was going to see these files, that's for sure, because at least one of them was bragging about the work he was doing for their ‘Goddess’.

And what 'work' it was - this wasn't the Lazarus Project, but it was related.

There were updates about the Shroud that it seemed no one but Gramática and his direct team should know. Smugness that they alone knew what the problem was - and though they all hinted at knowing the answer, no one mentioned the solution outright.

Desmond got the feeling that only Juno knew what it was that was holding the human scientists back - and the fact that she wasn't sharing it as freely as the information on the Isu relics made Desmond think that she didn't even trust her own agents, these 'instruments'.

But there was one project that dealt with transferring consciousness from one vessel to another. It was no secret, at least among these scientists, that this was for Juno's personal use, though they did discuss what benefits could be for themselves, or the Order.

And yet, the real progress of this project seemed to be mostly off the books. The official record was that no progress was being made yet, fake issues and roadblocks inserted into the monthly reports. But the internal documents stored here indicated that they had made great headway. It wasn't ready yet, but close. It didn't surprise him that notes on the Animus were among the reference material here.

Desmond had a feeling that part of the reason these men were so easily swayed was Juno's promise that they'd be able to use this process, to 'serve her eternally'. He was pretty certain these men knew the Templars would make no such promises. He was also pretty certain Juno wouldn't care enough to keep her promise; that to her, all humans were entirely expendable.

That wasn't his problem, though, not really. And for the first time since he became aware in the Temple, Desmond felt hope that he might actually be able to have his body back.

He copied everything he could find on the subject: every schematic, every single note, every single instant message and email about it, even the faked official reports.

But there were other things here, so he looked at those as well; some had to do with locating new Isu relics, some with testing the capabilities of the relics Juno had helped them recover - and here was the grim shit that Rebecca and Shaun had warned him about. Unwilling test subjects forced to be guinea pigs, made to do all sorts of tasks.

One project focused on making the perfect, obedient soldier-assassin; deadly and unquestioning.

Another test group focused on the ability of the relic (or the wielder) to fine-tune the pain that the relic dealt. To test the breadth of possibilities as needed. Their most effective user of that relic had been one that had been from that first group, rendered docile by the first relic he had been exposed to.

Then one day, he had overloaded his own body with pain, to the point that he had died from the stress of it.

The Templars were now trying to replicate that experiment, just to see if they could, basically, because they'd never trust anyone not of their own to wield such a tool outside of these walls.

He copied down what he found, but eventually stopped reading any of it; it was all awful and he'd promised that he'd do nothing about it - at least, not right now.

Burning this place down would honestly be a mercy, even if these people were still inside. That kind of thought disturbed him, though, so he moved on.

There was an interesting bit of information on the side, speculation by the scientists who'd pledged themselves to Juno's service. They all talked about her, about her motivations. They were smart people, and had started to pool their knowledge. They had few illusions that she trusted any of them fully, and started trying to guess at her motivations and whatnot. 

He copied that as well. Shaun would probably want it.

There were lesser projects that seemed promising, and he was already here, still undetected, so he started scanning and copying those as well.

He was browsing through a report about a site that had recently been closed to the public and to further investigation by the Templars. The official line to the public was that it was a historic preservation site being investigated. The line for the Templars was that the investigation had resulted in a site of interest, but one that they weren't pursuing immediately. This was promising, and if there was anything relevant about this site, Shaun would definitely find it.

He was halfway through the report when he felt a growing sense of pressure; something not quite like a weight pressing on the chest he no longer had, but not unlike that sensation, either.

He'd never felt anything like it, but it scared the shit out of him. He started to make his way out of the facility as fast as he could; there was definitely a 'direction' associated with the feeling, and it wasn't where Rebecca and Shaun had been, but he felt like maybe going that way wasn't the best idea, either.

_[There you are.]_

The words weren't said so much as pressed against him, somehow, almost pushed into him.

He felt her then; Juno, not in the Grey like he'd thought. She was just there, like he was, this massive, overwhelming presence. This was nothing like encountering her hologram had been.

_[Juno,]_ he replied, because he honestly wasn't sure he could even run from her.

_[How did you escape the Temple?]_

It was a demand, and the anger behind it was almost a heat he could feel.

He didn't want to answer, didn't want to betray his friends or what they'd done, but he didn't know if he could lie, and didn't think refusing was really an option.

_[Abstergo broke things, trying to steal secrets from the Temple.]_

That was true enough, and the anger coming from Juno only increased. He felt like he'd been surrounded by her somehow.

_[You don't belong here. You belong in the Grey, just like the rest of your kind.]_

_[No thanks,]_ Desmond replied. _[I'm good out here. You're not exactly my type.]_

He probably shouldn't have been so flippant. What came next wasn't a roar, but it felt like one.

_[You will,]_ She replied. _[One way or another, you will. You think your friends can save you, but they can't. You'll never get your body back.]_

Well, so much for that tactic. _[Maybe not, but there's no harm trying.]_

Juno laughed, which was frankly quite awful, when he was surrounded like this.

_[You are very wrong about that. There can be much harm in trying,]_ she said. _[You will see. Go then, Desmond, but we will meet again very soon.]_

The fact that her presence actually lessened immediately after her dismissal only served to prove to him that she had been trying to intimidate him. It had absolutely worked, but it was also good to know that he might be able to find a way to prevent it in the future.

He didn't wait for a second invitation, and said no parting words; he just escaped the moment he felt he could, as quickly as he could.

He couldn't go straight 'home', however. Just because he'd felt her coming this time didn't mean he always could. She might be able to disguise her presence from him.

He didn't want to risk Juno finding his friends, so he did the only thing that made sense - he fled, as far and as fast as he could manage.


	24. Chapter 24

To say Shaun was merely displeased would be a gross understatement regarding his state of mind. Desmond had been gone for three days - he wasn't even really supposed to take all of _one._

Rebecca spent most of her time tinkering with spare parts she basically always had on her person somehow, and even though she told him to chill out, he could tell she was just as worried as he was.

Part of him worried Desmond wasn't returning, that the worst they'd expected had come to pass. They'd observed all communications they could, passively, but Shaun was all but climbing the walls at this point, ready to storm the facility to get their friend back.

The other part of him was just focusing on how furious he was going to be when Desmond got back. He tried to focus on that part most often, because that was a future that involved Desmond returning to them, and not their gruesome, torturous deaths at Abstergo's hands. Or _worse_ , whatever that may be; fates that he couldn’t even anticipate.

This was like the one case where no news was horrible news, not the other way around.

They'd agreed on a week. They'd give Desmond a week before actively digging into Abstergo communications to try and determine Desmond's status.

Shaun wasn't certain he could make it that long. He was checking his email feed every two seconds, it felt like, and all the little chores he gave himself to fill the time seemed to take no time at all.

Rebecca refused to let him cook now, too, since he somehow both managed to over- and under-cook the same meal.

"Ugh," he groaned, pushing away from his little desk, laptop still open.

Rebecca rolled her eyes at him. He couldn't see her do it, he just knew.

"Shut up," he growled, and Rebecca sighed.

"Shaun, we agreed. One week."

"It shouldn't have even taken this long - the longer we wait, the worse it could be for him!"

Rebecca actually smiled at that, though, her soft, happy little thing. "You're really worried, huh?"

"Of course I'm worried, he," Shaun began, but stopped when he caught sight of her full expression, all misty-eyed and proud. "You know what? No, we're not having this conversation. I'm going to go… Sweep something," he said, gesturing to the hallway outside the bedroom door.

He didn't _want_ to sweep anything, and the safe house was basically spotless, but that was the first thing he could think of that took him out of the room.

She laughed, though, and he deflated a little bit. "C'mon," she said. "We can't get drunk about it right now, so are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

Shaun considered it, he really did, but no, he still did not want to talk about his stupid feelings. "No, I don't," he said. "It's the same as it was, things are fine as they are."

She took a breath, but he didn't need to hear whatever it was she was going to say. "Things are fine, or they _will_ be, once Desmond gets his lazy arse back here."

She just sighed at him, but it held no weight, not really.

He ended up sweeping anyway, because he needed something to do with his hands, and that was as good as anything.

Halfway through the kitchen, he felt a buzzing in his pocket, and he pulled out his phone, but that was still dark, no notifications. He pulled out his 'alarm stick' that was connected to Desmond's case. It was lit up, a solid green light and a blinking red one flashing at him.

He dropped the broom and all but sprinted to the room.

"So help me, Desmond, if you-"

"I ran into Juno!"

That stopped Shaun short, and he frowned at Desmond's case. "You met Juno?”

"Yes! I... I was afraid she could follow me here, to you guys, so I just ran away. I'm sorry! I... I got lost, a little, but I'm back. I have information!"

"What kind of information?"

"A lot. Oh man, I don't even know where to start. Hook me up to your laptop," Desmond said, and Shaun hesitated, because that was the first time Desmond has ever said 'me' when talking about his case.

But Shaun obeyed, and soon he could see that data was flowing into the folders that were waiting for it.

"Headlines?" he asked.

"Well, three of five scientists have been turned to Juno's service, the progress on the Shroud has been probably artificially solved, and uh, they're working on transferring consciousness."

Rebecca let out a whoop. "They're what?" she asked, eyes alight.

"They're working on transferring consciousness - from one vessel to another. It's not really research that started at Juno's behest, but she's co-opted it into her own project. They're misleading Templar leadership about the progress on this one as well. It's very close to ready, though I don't think it's actually ready to go yet."

"Desmond!" she squealed, and Desmond laughed.

Transferring consciousness? He knew what she was after, then.

"Desmond, she wants your body," Shaun said, moving to navigate to the Temple files. A quick search revealed that many locations deemed important enough by the Isu could be opened only by those with enough Isu DNA. He wasn't sure what location it was she was after, but she'd need a body to get in, to access whatever it was that was in there.

Desmond let out what sounded like a sigh. "Yeah, I figured - we already knew they were holding my body at her demand, we just didn't know what for. Do you know why she needs it?"

"Not yet," Shaun admitted. "There are sites that need a high concentration of Isu DNA to enter, a safeguard against their own creations using their technology against them, I'd imagine."

"What kind of technology?"

"Honestly, their living spaces were one of the usual areas they liked to safeguard against human access. Favored human slaves would be given an identification of some sort that let them access to ah, do whatever they did there."

Rebecca snorted at that, and Desmond scoffed.

"Yes, well. I'd imagine there were other sites that were safeguarded as well, ones that stored artifacts, or maybe armories or anything that could help humans rebel or escape," he said. "Probably any location that stored information would be forbidden to the humans as well."

"Of course," Rebecca said. "What else was there, you said the Shroud project was stalled?"

"Yeah, there's been a lack of progress. The scientists here don't know why, but they all think that Juno knows and is waiting until it benefits her to shed any light on that project.

"That does sound like her," Shaun murmured, wry smirk curling his lips. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, the uh, the experiments. They want perfect, obedient killers. Mindless, unable to question or hesitate. They're also testing the capabilities of a few artifacts there - one that just causes pain. They've theorized there might be other uses for it, but they haven't explored that possibility at all."

Shaun sighed, and nodded. "That sounds like something they'd do," he agreed. He ran a hand through his hair. He was about to ask if Desmond found anything else, but Desmond spoke before he could.

"There was more, but I... I had to stop reading it. I copied it all down, though. I'm fine, though, I just, I couldn't. Not while I was still there."

Shaun nodded, and glanced at the progress of the data transfer. Nearly halfway. He glanced to Rebecca, who'd been unusually quiet, because she'd basically wanted to ask about Juno the moment she had come up.

Shaun had wanted to give Desmond a moment or two to calm down, a distraction because he'd sounded so distraught and scared when he first came in.

He nodded at her, and Rebecca returned it, solemn. "So uh," she began, "What about meeting Juno? What was that like? What did she want?"

There was a long pause.

"Honestly?" Desmond asked. "Terrifying. She's, she's overwhelming. Strong. She was able to - it felt like she had surrounded me. But I don't know what she wanted. She said I belonged in the Grey, like the rest of my kind."

"What does that even mean?" Rebecca complained.

"It's... It's a place," Desmond answered. Shaun knew the question had been rhetorical, but now he was intrigued. "Like... It's... It's like a network. it's everywhere, and it's huge, vast, like an enormous ocean. You can't... You can't comprehend the size, it's like it doesn't compute."

"You've seen it?" Shaun asked.

"Sort of," Desmond replied. "I've felt it. It feels empty, and I was afraid that if I entered, not only would Juno be able to find me, but I'd be lost, that I might never get out."

Rebecca gave an exaggerated shudder. "Well that sounds awful," she said, "Can't wait to join Juno in there."

Desmond laughed, and even Shaun chuckled a little.

"Did she say anything else?"

There was a thoughtful sort of noise from the case. "She said that my friends can't save me. She told me I'd never get my body back."

"Don't tell me that you told her-"

"Of course not!" Desmond interrupted. "I didn't say anything about you guys! She asked me how I got out, I told her Abstergo broke shit trying to recover their technology!"

Rebecca laughed again at that. "Well, thanks for that. I feel like she knows more than she's telling anyone, basically."

Shaun nodded, and rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. "She's right, though - even with this knowledge, we can't recover your body. How close did you say they were to completing the process?"

"I don't know, but it seemed like they were very close." Shaun looked at the transfer log again - it was very nearly complete.

"We'll know soon enough," he said. "So what happened when you ran from Juno?"

"Well, I'm not sure. I picked a direction that was basically 'away from you guys' and then just uh, went as fast as I could. I don't know how to measure that, I don't know how long I ran or waited. By the time I felt it was probably safe, I didn't recognize any of the signals around me. Which, I thought I'd be prepared for, but I panicked a little."

Rebecca smiled and patted his case gently. "But you did make it back," she said. "How'd you find us?"

"I tried to find your phones first. It took a moment, but once I knew how to trace a signal like that, I could follow it."

Shaun hummed, hoping he sounded as approving as he felt. “That was smart," he said. "It means we can avoid anchoring anything, and possibly calling attention to our location to Juno."

"Exactly," Desmond agreed. "It's so weird. I feel like I want to be tired, but I'm not. Not really."

For a moment, Shaun felt a sharp stab of pity for Desmond. He was made for a body he no longer had, and sometimes, he'd say something like this, something so heartbreaking that Shaun was almost angry at him, because he had no idea what to do with such a useless emotion.

"Well, try to get some rest, anyway. Or, if you'd rather not, why don't you check up on the Temple data? See if anything new has been translated?"

Desmond laughed, already sounding much better. "Yeah, that sounds pretty good right now. Love me some census data."

Shaun grinned. "Well, go on then, get to work. We've got a few days yet before we can return through the border again, so might as well make yourself useful until we have to pack you away."

Desmond grumbled, but it had no heat. Things weren't fixed, not really, but at least they were better for now.

~

Shaun wasn't certain that Desmond had actually done very much work while they'd packed up and arranged their trip back to Montreal but he was certain that Desmond had been in the data itself.

He glanced over the files Desmond had obviously been in, read the few notes he'd left regarding the machine translation, but they were just odds and ends. No real commonality between the data.

Rebecca had resumed her job almost immediately upon returning, so things were basically back to what had quickly become their normal. This was as close to a base as they had, and it was really starting to feel like home.

That was a dangerous thought.

He returned to his own dataset. It had been a few days, so he sorted the new articles into his system, and updated his 'control map'. It wasn't too different from some of Desmond's sessions as Ezio in the Animus, really, only instead of tracking zones of control, it was tracking locations of artifacts and sites - and noting which Abstergo had already accessed or taken.

He had a lot more information, thanks to Desmond's forays into Abstergo's systems, and the data from the Temple only highlighted the pattern that was forming.

Abstergo was definitely being herded in certain directions. While Shaun couldn't say definitively whether it was to or away from something, the likelihood of it being towards something was pretty small, especially given that there were a few large 'holes' in territory with long human history, where Abstergo projects rarely ventured.

He had no data on what those locations contained. Well, one was somewhat consistent with a residential description he'd come across earlier, but if so, it would likely be buried deep underground - far too deep for Assassin resources to get to, and likely too deep for Abstergo to bother with, when there were so many richer, easier targets elsewhere.

Other areas held a lot of human history, though, which might or might not be relevant. The most promising, however, appeared to be in Romania. Looks like he'd have to dig into the history of the country, which was the biggest area that had any history in the center of one of those 'holes'. That really wasn't the issue for Shaun - likely he'd have done some research in that area eventually. The real issue was the likelihood he'd have to turn over yet another set of data to another team to take action on.

The possibility set his teeth on edge. He'd do it, of course he would, if evidence indicated this wasn't a fruitful path towards stopping Juno, but God he'd hate doing it.

Now that Juno knew about Desmond's presence, she had plenty of reason to bump up her timeline, though, a factor they couldn't ignore.

Her people were much closer to putting her into Desmond's body than they were at putting her into a new one of her own, after all.

Well, he didn't want to give this data to another team, _and_ they already wouldn't have the resources to dig into the other site anyway. Also, he was also feeling dangerously at home here.

They'd only been back a little over a week, and Rebecca had already started her job again, but... it would be easier to leave now, for her, and them, honestly. They hadn’t even needed to return, actually; they just hadn’t had anywhere else to go. He just had to convince them that it was time to move on.

"Hey Desmond," he said out loud, because Rebecca was gone, and he needed at least some audience for his dramatic proclamation, "How do you feel about moving?"

_~_

Rebecca hadn't been as hard to talk into the trip as he'd imagined. He knew she'd gotten attached to the guys at work, but he also knew that she was addicted to the more exciting lifestyle of recovery missions. She lived for the thrill of just sticking it to the Templars wherever they could.

The guys had thrown her a going away party, even though she'd only been there a few months. Shaun even agreed to go, mostly because even if she might never see these guys again, they were still important to her.

Perhaps most importantly, it was people like them that reminded the Assassins of what they were really fighting for. He'd even had a pretty good time, and had graciously allowed Rebecca to take a photo or two of him for Desmond.

But then it was time to pack and fly again, this time to Bucharest, Romania, and whatever it was they would find there.

Rebecca sometimes got all misty-eyed at these kinds of departures, but this wasn't one of those times. He knew she'd really liked those men, but this was one of the times where determination outweighed sadness.

Sometimes, he entertained the thought that he might lose her after one of these covert missions. Since Shaun so often provided support and information to other teams (even with the Garden Rooftop Protocol in effect, there were still lines of communication, albeit few), he was only very rarely able to take the 'day job' himself. She usually didn't mind, but sometimes, leaving would be harder than others had before.

Statistically, Assassin's didn't live all that long. Would it be so bad if she retired into doing something she loved? They'd had so many close calls already; they'd lost so many people, and Rebecca had already been shot once, for Christ's sake!

Shaun didn't ever really think about a future like that for himself, though. Grim as it may be, he was determined to fight the Templars and their machinations until his very last breath, and even then, he'd probably use it to wound an ego or two on his way down.

He never talked about this stuff with her, though, wasn't even sure how he'd say half of what he meant, even if he knew she'd understand the truth of it all the same.

Nowadays, he wondered, though; what about Desmond? He'd probably stay with the Assassins, in all honesty, but now he might outlast all of them. Shaun wondered sometimes; how long could he live like that, what would he become? This hadn't been an option that was presented to them by Juno and Minerva, but Juno had lasted inside the Temple for tens of thousands of years - what would happen to Desmond in that kind of time frame?

He couldn't imagine Desmond turning into something like Juno was now - her madness had come long before her imprisonment, but Shaun was certain it hadn't exactly helped.

It didn't matter, of course - in the end, he wouldn't get to see it. He might never know the answer.

He shook his head to clear these thoughts, as he'd kind of zoned out instead of packing. He had a ton of research to do while they traveled, so he needed to not waste time on such pointless thoughts.

~

Shaun spent the next three days exhausted. Given their desire to stay off the radar - and their budgets - they had to take more flights, all on smaller planes, with strange layovers and no money for hotels because he had to pay for in-air WiFi on each damn trip.

He basically existed on energy drinks and spite, and while Rebecca never complained as she poked and prodded him to get him where he needed to go, he knew that would be coming later.

Desmond and he texted a little, mostly when Rebecca reminded him that there was a world outside of emergency research and airport coffee. He knew it must be rough, since Desmond's case had to be packed away, and Shaun knew he was being a right tit, but it wasn't like Desmond was confined to the case anymore.

He'd even told Shaun that he occasionally poked around to see what was unsecured around him - a lot, he said, which didn't surprise Shaun one bit.

He was glad, though, that Desmond had that freedom. While the case offered a better life than the Temple did, Desmond being able to escape it did a lot to relieve worries if it ever got lost - or, much likelier, confiscated.

Shaun didn't care so much if the Templars got their hands on the power cell - they'd had them in their grasp before, and probably had others now, anyway. He was almost certain they'd destroy the things before letting Assassins have them - or, failing that, try to destroy access to them, like the Temple itself.

The thing that really kept Shaun at wit’s end was the fact that even his in-depth research wasn't providing the kind of information that would be most helpful. There were holy sites, sure, and government protected lands - some of which, Shaun had no doubt had Templar money behind it, keeping the public away from yet another pet project or important Isu site.

But nothing that hinted at why Juno was so concerned about this area, especially given that there were signs of Templar presence in the area anyway. With the rich Christian history of the area, it'd be hard to find places the Templars _hadn’t_ had control over at one point or another. He was certain most weren't anything important outside of human history, though of course he didn't have any actual proof as to why, only his 'gut instinct', which he'd mostly come to think of basically as good as, anyway, though he did genuinely strive to find proof when he could.

There were three sites in particular that piqued his interest most, and, well, while they were running up against a deadline, they didn't know how long they had - so dawdling and stressing over the decision of which to visit in what order was a waste of time.

So, he made a list, the 'fors' and 'againsts' of each, and he presented it to his teammates.

Desmond, rather than going into his case, had opted to peek at the file on Shaun's computer instead.

"They all look good to me - I think the order you've got them in is fine," he said. Despite his words, his tone wasn't dismissive, just unsure.

Rebecca looked at the list closely, checked it against Google maps, and nodded. "This looks good. It's a little out of the way, but that's to our benefit. One of these is public - we should definitely hit that second, look like tourists."

"Why second?" Desmond asked. Rebecca grinned.

"Because we're going to hit the first in Târgoviște tonight. It'd make sense to sightsee on our first full day here, but we can definitely hit this smaller one tonight if we go and get dinner here, after checking into the hostel I just booked us in," she said, gesturing to a little eatery she'd found, not a ten minute walk from the hostel pin on the map. "It's even got 3.7 stars on Google," she added, wagging her brows like she hadn't already convinced Shaun, at least.

It meant his favored site would be last, but if they were visiting all three within the span of a couple of days, then that wasn't so bad. He groaned, though, because he knew she expected it. "Ugh, I'm going to have to do stretches right when we get in, I'll have no time to unpack."

Rebecca only grinned, and even Desmond laughed. It felt good to have a plan, at least, and it had been a little while since he'd done some trespassing on government property.

He was absolutely looking forward to it.

~

After all the trouble to infiltrate not only a museum, but also an administrative building in Târgoviște, what with the stretching and working after too many hours of travel, he was sorely bitter that the place had been such a bust.

For them, anyway; sure, they got some information on certain projects Abstergo would definitely like to keep under wraps, but it hadn't anything to do with Juno or the Isu. Just plain old humans being awful to each other by plain old human means.

Still, he'd make sure the information got into the hands of some activists, and ensure Abstergo was on some shit lists for a while, at least.

So they returned to their hostel, sore and tired. Shaun managed to brush his teeth before he fell head-first into bed, but he'd only just managed to remove his shoes before crashing.

He hated infiltration after travel - and after eating!

In the morning, they planned on visiting the Făgăraș fortress, so Shaun had to dress the part. Today's outfit, apparently, was cargo shorts, sneakers, a T-shirt from some school's Mathletics department, and a baseball hat. Well, that, and lots of sunscreen, because "I'm English, that means I'm basically allergic to the sun."

If Desmond still had his body, Shaun might have worried he'd burst a vein with how hard he laughed, but he didn't, so Shaun ignored him. He was a _master_ of his craft, alright? A little indignity was nothing in the face of Juno's wrath, and also, oh, _saving the world_. For God’s sake, he’d been a barista in Abstergo’s own lobby! He’d _dyed his hair!_

Still, it was fun to play the part of a British tourist, gawking at all the old history and whatnot. He made sure to ask the tour guide a ton of questions, and also to linger here or there, looking at sculptures or murals or what have you, and generally being quite a pain to the rest of the tour group while Rebecca snuck around to the areas inaccessible to the public.

By the time their tour was over, Shaun was certain the entire group hated not only him, but all of Britain by proxy. Rebecca had also seamlessly inserted herself back into the group, nattering on with another American woman about jewelry or something like they were fast friends.

Shaun wasn't sure what Desmond had been doing while they were out, but these days, he didn't have to worry about it, which was nice.

It turns out, he'd been looking around to see if he could find traces of Juno's presence in Făgăraș at all, and had come up negative so far. Honestly, that was a relief to more than just Desmond - from what he'd described earlier, Shaun was certain he didn't want to have any contact with Juno at all.

Back at their rented room, Rebecca flopped onto her bed with a sigh. "Well, you'd have loved it because it had tons of boring historical shit, but no traces of Isu tech that I could see," she said. "I mean, some engravings or murals that definitely had some _implications_ , but nothing that led to actual artifacts, as far as I can tell." Shaun was about to speak up when Rebecca held up her hand. "Of course I took pictures, you dork, they're already uploading to the cloud as we speak."

Shaun grinned at her and darted to his computer where he confirmed that yes, she had started an upload an hour ago, while they were still on the bus.

He spent some time browsing the photos she took, cross-referenced a few with his own vast collection. Her assessment had been spot on as far as he could see; nothing that indicated anything beyond potential Isu presence a long, long time ago.

He heard Rebecca grumble a bit before she fell asleep, then heard her wake up and talk with Desmond a bit. They didn't ask for his input, so maybe he got a bit absorbed in adding to his catalogue and translating as much of the art and glyphs that he could. It wasn't as much as he hoped, but every little bit helped.

"I _said_ ," Rebecca all but yelled from her position at his elbow, "Some of us are getting hungry, and we have no food here. C'mon loser, I know you need to eat, too."

Shaun glared at her, but she apparently had supernatural timing, as his stomach grumbled right then, and he glanced at the clock in just enough time to realize he'd been at this for almost three hours.

"Fine, fine," he grumbled, but everyone present knew it was for show. He did take a moment to save his progress and back up the files in triplicate, though - no reason to be sloppy, after all.

It was actually kind of nice to go out to dinner like this; they didn't actually sit down for a calm dinner very often. Sure, it was in a small family restaurant that they could only order from by pointing and pantomiming, but the food was rather good and the company better. Desmond chatted with them via text in a group chat, and it was, well, nice.

They definitely deserved more evenings like this, but it was thought tinged with guilt. Evenings like this weren't possible for everyone, and if the Templars had their way, would be impossible for all but the privileged few.

"Gosh, you're morbid tonight," Rebecca mused. He glanced up at her, and she smiled. "You don't need to say it for me to know what you're thinking. Tomorrow's the big day," she said, with a shrug.

He gave her a wry grin. "It might not be," he said, but couldn't resist returning the full grin she gave him at that.

"Yeah, maybe," she said, rolling her eyes. "I can count on one hand the number of times you've been wrong about stuff like this, and I'd only need half my fingers to do it."

Shaun might have protested at that, but his phone pinged with the notification from the group chat they shared with Desmond. Rebecca got her phone first, and laughed.

_please, share with the class._ Desmond had entered into the chat.

_When we get back, I promise_ , she replied, and Shaun sighed.

Shaun only gave a self-deprecating shrug, but didn't bother arguing. It wouldn't take long, and hell, Desmond could use more stories about them anyways, and he didn’t even mind that they might be the ones that he was less than completely victorious.

Besides, he had a feeling this was the last untroubled night he'd have in a while. He couldn't explain why, just a gut instinct that told him to relax and take advantage of this while he could, so he intended to.

Whatever they'd find, whether here or later, they could always use good memories to look back on and keep them going.

~

Shaun wasn't surprised that there was a security presence at the third site, an underground 'city' recently discovered through the sewers in Bucharest. Since this particular discovery had quickly been covered up by the Templars, some security was expected, but he was surprised at how _much_ of a security presence there was. Usually there was a cursory guard or two at the entrance, a locked door or fence of some kind; more often these days, there were cameras to cut, rewire or avoid.

But this was reminiscent of infiltrations he'd seen in the Animus, with guards around many corners, patrolling hallways. There were no cameras, though, likely because of the age of the site, and the difficulty of wiring that kind of setup without damaging anything.

Times like this, Eagle Vision would be _very_ useful, he thought, poking his head around another corner as stealthily as he could.

It's a good job this site didn't involve much climbing, because his arms were killing him from knocking out and dragging at least ten guards. Since they hadn't had the ability to memorize shifts or patrol patterns, they had to hide their bodies as well as they could in the maze-like system of corridors and hallways. So far, they hadn't been spotted by anyone - at least, not long enough for an alarm to be called, or so Shaun surmised by the lack of alarms that went off or reinforcements arriving.

Neither Shaun nor Rebecca were opposed to killing if they had to, but these guys were most likely small-time government employees and probably had no idea their leaders had accepted dirty money to keep people out of this site. They weren't actually enemies.

Shaun was so glad Rebecca agreed with him on this. There were no arguments - there was no talking at all, actually - just efficiency and competence. He'd have to buy her a drink after this, wouldn't even bother telling her what for. Honestly, she'd probably know; she was smart like that.

Still, it did mean a lot of extra work as they made their way to the center of the underground complex. There were almost no guards that far in, but neither of them were amateurish enough to drop their guard - which is a good thing, because the very center of the complex held a big, ornate building that looked very significant.

Like, _religious ceremony_ significant. Like, 'Home of the Gods' significant. He couldn't see all the markings from here, but clearly divine beings were believed to belong here. He pulled out a small pair of binoculars and let out a soft breath. Well, if these 'gods' weren't Isu, they certainly shared a love of subjugation via round artifacts held aloft.

He passed the binoculars to Rebecca so she could take a look. It was always a good feeling when he'd turned out to be right. He didn't even see any guards between their position and the only entrance that he could see.

She handed the binoculars back, and he stowed them in his pack. Even though there were no obvious guards between them and their objective, Shaun wouldn't abide sloppiness getting them caught, so they took it slow. It felt a little bit like a waste when they encountered no one, no proof even that anyone patrolled here regularly.

But then someone was walking out of that entrance, and oh, that did not feel good. That did not feel good at _all_. It was Desmond - or at least, it was his body that walked out of the doorway.

Shaun waited for the drop in his stomach, waited for the grief that came with the realization that the Desmond he knew wasn't really Desmond at all, but it didn't come. He waited for any kind of relief at seeing his friend alive. That didn't come either.

He didn't have long to wonder why - this Desmond wasn't... _right_. The way he moved wasn't like Desmond at all. _This_ Desmond moved with a confidence so aggressive it clearly demanded - and expected to receive - immediate obedience. 'His' movements were also slightly jerky, as if the person inside the body wasn't used to it. This ‘Desmond’ had lost some weight from the last time Shaun had seen him, and had been shaved completely bald.

This Desmond _also_ wore a sneer that looked like it was permanent somehow, though Shaun had seen him for all of three seconds.

Rebecca, just behind him, tensed because he had - neither of them were so inexperienced as to let out a noise or a harsh breath to betray both their surprise and their position.

It didn't take a genius to figure out who this really was; Juno looked over the quiet hall, empty of any security presence, and smirked.

"Do you think I do not know you are there?" she asked, and turned her gaze squarely where Shaun was. It was still Desmond's voice, mostly, but it was just as wrong as the rest of it, lacking the warmth and humor he'd come to associate with Desmond. Rebecca was slightly behind him, and would have been out of Juno’s sight. He tapped the ground behind him and stood up - he'd been found out, sure, but this hadn't been completely unexpected, after all. Rebecca could still stay behind.

He stepped from around the corner of the half-collapsed building they'd been crouching behind.

"Alright, you got me," he said, raising his hands. He wasn't completely unarmed, but she likely knew that, even if his sleeves did hide the weapons strapped to his arms.

Juno smiled, and it was a mean thing, eyes not on Shaun, but the corner he'd stepped from. But she didn't say anything, just met Shaun's eyes again as that awful smile on Desmond’s face inched wider.

"More than you realize," Juno agreed. "However, you are in luck, because I have come to _bargain_ with you.” 

Shaun stared from across the short distance, because of all the things he'd expected an encounter with Juno to include (death, mostly; specifically his and Rebecca's), this hadn't even been on the list.

He realized it should have; there was nothing Juno wouldn't do to achieve her ambitions.

But he had no idea what that actually _was_. "What on earth could we possibly do for you?" he asked, not bothering to keep the genuine incredulity from his voice.

Juno made a sound that was a laugh, and oh, wasn't that awful? It was a cruel sound, and it didn't fit the body she had stolen at all. But it reminded him exactly what leverage she held over them, and they both knew it.

"Don't be so modest; you and I both know you have unique skills; skills that I could use. _You_ , in particular."

Shaun frowned, because yes, he _was_ very skilled, thank you very much, but not in a way that translated well to whatever it was a megalomaniacal being of incredible power that had originally created humanity wanted.

"I'm not going to insult both of us and pretend I don't understand at least some of the cards you're holding, but what could I do that your cultists and Abstergo buddies can't?"

Juno only kept staring. She definitely didn't blink often, and Shaun just spent precious seconds insanely worrying that Desmond, when they get his body back for him, will have incredibly dry eyes. Because, of course, they _were_ going to get his body back, whatever had to happen.

"I don't know that you will, only that you could," she said. "But there is something I'm searching for. Knowledge; knowledge that was hidden from me when they imprisoned me."

Shaun couldn't help but be intrigued. This was a puzzle, and sounded like one that even he had to admit he was uniquely qualified to solve. "What kind of knowledge?" he asked, and Juno only narrowed her eyes at him. He could _feel_ her impatience with him, and though he hadn’t thought his muscles could tense any further or his stomach roil harder, well, he’d been wrong.

She answered anyway, though. "A... place," she said slowly. "An important place. I don't know what it does, I only know that it will give me what I want."

Shaun sighed. "Well, from what I understand, you want basically one thing, and you have a million plans to get there, that's not really helpful."

"It's all you will get," she said.

Shaun spared a thought for Rebecca - he hoped she left by now, hopefully after hearing that Juno wanted to broker a deal, one that included Desmond's body as collateral. But, if she hadn't, he hoped she left _now_ , with this extra information. It was a shame he had no way to tell her so without, you know, betraying her presence.

"Desmond would tell us to just let you kill his body instead of work with you, you know," he said. "I don't think you have as much leverage as you think."

Juno's smile only grew sharper somehow, all twisted and wrong on Desmond's face.

"You'll have to look for it now, though, won’t you? You're not the only ones looking, and you know it. And we both know you can't risk me getting there first. My reach is long, Shaun Hastings, and I can track you anywhere on this planet. If you cooperate, you'll at least get to see your friend back in his body. Otherwise I'll destroy it, then I'll track him down and destroy him as well, so completely there will be nothing left of him to join you all in the Grey."

"Say I agree to your terms, what then?" he asked, because A) he needed to stall for time and B) he hoped she'd actually give him an answer he could twist to at least some advantage.

"Then, I imagine, you'll return to whatever hovel you're staying in now, and get started immediately," she said, sounding bored. "I'll be keeping an eye on you - I promise, you won't find this place without me knowing. If you keep to the terms, we'll meet there and I'll turn _Desmond_ over into your custody. If you don't, we'll meet there anyway, and you'll like the outcome a great deal less."

"What guarantees do we have that you'll keep your word?"

"None," Juno answered, with a tone that normally accompanied a shrug, which she did not do. "You have only my word. Let's not waste time here, you and I both know what I'm really after. I won't promise that you or he won't die eventually, but I can at least promise that you'll have some time together before that happens. Even if you waste it trying to fight me; the outcome would still be the same, and that would be your choice."

Shaun honestly didn't think he'd get a better offer than that, and unfortunately, she had a point. He'd known she was after something; meeting her here just meant he'd been on the right track, mostly. If he'd just been better or smarter, they might already be at the site they needed.

Actually, now that he thought about it... "How did you know I would be here, tonight?"

Juno laughed, but never took her eyes off him. It wasn't a pleasant sensation. "The same way I know you will help me find what I'm after," she answered, and honestly, that was entirely what he expected to hear, and it was still entirely awful to be right about it.

"Alright," he said. 'Well, best get started, I've got a lot of work ahead of me."

Juno smiled again, and it was even more terrible than the first. That kind of ugly, triumphant expression had no place on Desmond's face. "Indeed," she said, as if she were indulging him. Then she turned and wandered back into the large, no doubt ceremonial, room.

He'd never been in a place like this before, and part of him wanted to follow, to see what was in there. Luckily, he had a lot of experience in suppressing the worst of his absolutely mad impulses, so he glanced behind him and backed away a little bit before he turned to leave the way he'd come in.

Hopefully, he would meet up with Rebecca without any more surprises.


	25. Chapter 25

Desmond wished he'd had a way to follow his friends when they went out. Well, he could sort of track their cell phone signals for a bit, but only until the signals were lost, anyway. He definitely needed to learn to discover and track things that weren't connected to a network - he hadn't realized until now how much he relied on that to get around.

However, that wasn't actually what he wanted; since he had no way to connect a signal with a real-world location at all, the ability to find them didn’t mean he knew where they were. He didn't snoop on their devices, so he had no idea how to turn on a camera or microphone that was off by default. And if they turned off their phones, or left them behind for whatever reason, well, that was another issue.

Either way, it meant more fucking waiting, and all the restless energy that came with that - only he had no real outlet for it, these days.

Still, what other choice did he have? He picked up their phones again when they were in a certain range of him (he had no idea what that range was, since, again, he had no real way to measure it), so he plopped himself in his case and waited.

Nearly six hours after they left, the two finally returned. Immediately, Desmond could see that they weren't happy with each other, as the moment the hostel door was shut, an argument began - in harsh, angry whispers, since it was just after four in the morning.

"Shaun, don't even!" Rebecca began, but Shaun definitely was even-ing, because he turned on her and pointed his finger at her face.

"Don't you 'don't even' me! I can _not_ believe you didn't leave! What were you thinking?"

"Oh, yeah, like I'm just going to leave you to the tender mercies of a megalomaniacal deity who wants to enslave all of humanity!"

Desmond was already paying attention, but that definitely made him cry out in surprise. "Wait, you guys met Juno?"

But neither responded to his question.

"That's exactly what you should have done! What on earth could you have prevented at that point? You should have left, since I can almost guarantee you she knew you were there!"

"Oh, yeah? First of all, if she knew I was there, then what's the likelihood I'd escape all on my lonesome? And second of all, at that point, what information would I even have had to deliver? That Juno existed? That she'd gotten herself put in Desmond's body? That's great and all, but we needed to know what she wanted!"

"Wait, she was _in my body?!"_

"You'd have made it out just fine, and yes, that was more than enough information to deliver - and even if it wasn't, she gave us what she was after long before she let me leave, so don't act like there was only one opportunity!"

"I couldn't risk that being the only bombshell that she dropped - and maybe the fact that she says she can track us and what we discover is important? Maybe that's something I should have stuck around to hear?"

"Wait, she can track us?"

"You damn well could have risked that! Any information was worthless if she killed us both. We're lucky as it was."

"Lucky, _sure._ You know what, Shaun-"

"Guys!" Desmond 'shouted' as loud as he could. Which was, wow, fairly loud. He hoped he hadn't woken their neighbors.

Both Rebecca and Shaun turned to him, eyes wide as if they'd forgotten he was there.

"Take it from the top, and maybe leave the accusations out of it?"

They shared a sullen glance, but they took turns relaying the details of the mission, mostly without insults or opinions. _Mostly._

"The thing is, I've already got a good idea how to find what it is she wants. The only difficult part is that we have to find it based on what information we _don’t_ have."

"What do you mean?" Desmond asked. He was already starting to form a plan for combing the Temple data, though Shaun could likely program and deploy a program that would finish any search faster than Desmond could; the volume of available data was just that high.

"She said the information had been taken, that she'd been forbidden from it. It's probably not even _in_ the data available at the Temple. So, we can either try to find another site like the Temple, a database of Isu knowledge - which, if they were smart, they'd have 'forbidden' her from as well, so I'd not place any bets on information about sites like that being in the database - or, we try to make a map based on the areas of the globe the locations listed in the Temple don't cover."

Desmond nodded, already switching tracks. It would be much easier to scan for anything that mentioned a location, and cross-reference that with others, or with a map.

Rebecca grinned, pulling her own laptop out from her bag. “So, Des, wanna talk about your body? Because, man, it definitely did not look good on her."

Desmond laughed, but not as lighthearted as Rebecca had clearly expected. "Well, a little bit, yeah. Because I don't want you guys to hesitate. If you have a chance to end her, you should take it."

Shaun, already at his own workstation, just nodded, but Rebecca frowned. "You can't be serious."

"I am. I know it might not kill _her_ , but I don't want her using my body as leverage; we don't know how to get me back in that body, and might not have the resources to do so even if we stole the knowledge from the Templars. _And_ , even if we could get her out of it, there's the issue of keeping it alive and safe."

Rebecca frowned and stabbed at her keyboard more forcefully than necessary. “Man, that's not even fair," she said. "I can't promise that."

"Well, I can't make you, obviously, but I'd kill my body just to keep it out of her hands. If it kills her permanently, then, well, that’s a pretty big bonus."

Desmond saw Shaun smirk slightly at that, but he didn't turn from his monitor or say anything. Rebecca sighed. “You suck," she grumbled.

Desmond would have smiled if he could; he appreciated the sentiment, but he'd tried to kill that body once to save the world, and he’d been in it at the time; he'd definitely do it again to save it from a different threat.

"C'mon Shaun, hook me up to your computer, we'll go faster."

~

It took them almost two weeks to go through all of the data they had available. Near the end, the two who had bodies were working to exhaustion every day. Desmond took fewer and shorter breaks, because he didn't really need them, did he? (He did, actually, but he'd have time for that once they succeeded. _If_ they succeeded.)

It felt like they were up against some sort of deadline, one they couldn't possibly know, even though there had been no signs Juno had been nearby; Desmond certainly hadn’t been able to detect her until she’d been all but upon him, at least. And she'd certainly made no move to contact them yet.

But eventually, Shaun was certain he'd found the location of what they were looking for, if not its purpose. It was located near the remote Russian city of Norilsk, a site so remote that getting there was going to require a lot of preparation, some heavy equipment, and someone that spoke Russian. Luckily, he said he had a friend he could call on, and said he’d contact her as soon as they were done.

Shaun proposed contacting Juno and getting Abstergo to bankroll the travel, but Rebecca and Desmond had a few concerns.

"What's to stop her from just going without us?"

"Well, we wouldn't provide the coordinates right off, would we? What kind of idiot do you think I am?"

"You don't want an answer to that," Rebecca shot, and Shaun rolled his eyes.

"I'm just saying, it would be nice to travel on Abstergo's dime for once."

Desmond laughed a little, because even he could recognize the capitulation there. "Could we even trust anything they provided? Oh, ‘here's some water for the flight, Mr. Hastings, drink up, dehydration is such a concern.’"

Rebecca snorted at that, and smiled. "C'mon, it's not that big of a deal - besides, the site might be inaccessible. No matter who gets there first, it's unlikely they'll be able to access it right away. Even if it was somehow unlocked or whatever, who knows what geological events might have blocked access that way?"

Shaun shrugged. “I suppose I'll have to settle for Abstergo paying for the excavation. Besides, it's not like we can even trust that Juno won't show up with a hundred Abstergo agents ready to capture or kill us," he said, with a casual shrug that didn't at all match the seriousness of what he'd just said. "William only warned me to be careful - and I think our best bet is cooperation for now. We know she doesn't trust Abstergo nearly as much as they think, so I'm betting she won't chance them attempting to steal the site right out from under her. Either way, I've got a better plan."

He stopped there, and Rebecca grumbled a little. “What is it?" Desmond asked, to forestall any bickering.

Shaun smirked over at him. “We're going to set up our travel plans, for a group of four or five, since I seriously doubt Juno is going to come completely alone, and then we're going to invite her for lunch."

Rebecca laughed, but Desmond didn't. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"He means, we're going to meet her in person with whatever security she decides to bring, and lay out our terms. Namely, that we'll embark right after eating, and that we've already made accommodations for her as well. That way," she started, but Desmond interrupted.

"Okay, okay, I get it. We don't have to trust Abstergo branded water bottles, we can get a headstart if Juno doesn't like the terms, and we're not in breach of the agreement. Very neat. Now we just need to come up with the plans and the money."

Shaun and Rebecca both laughed. “Honestly, Desmond," Shaun began, sitting down at his laptop. “If you don't think I've already figured a way for Abstergo to pay for everything anyway, it's like you don't even know me."

Desmond laughed at that, delighted. He was certain that whatever Shaun had in mind was risky, but he trusted that Shaun wouldn't do anything he hadn't calculated and confirmed was an acceptable risk.

He could honestly say he was looking forward to the trip, if only because it was nearly the last one they'd have to take for a while.

They just had to, you know, save the world first.

~

Shaun had been pleased to report that Galina had insisted on coming along herself to help with the mission; apparently, she wouldn't take no for an answer, though she had finally conceded that she wouldn't accompany them to the site per the deal they were offering Juno. Given that their travel plans would take so long, there was risk that Juno could have other agents waiting for them, or arriving later to meet her, or... well, any number of possibilities that meant it was far better for Galina to stay in Norilsk for the duration and keep an eye out for any new arrivals.

Not that it would be hard - Norilsk was not exactly a tourist town, and new arrivals would have a hard time not standing out.

Shaun had also been one hundred percent right about another thing; Desmond's body did not look good on Juno at all. It was much thinner than he realized, for one, and her expressions honestly made him look kind of constipated sometimes.

He'd make allowances for not being used to being in a body again, or maybe for being in one so different than her own, but at the end of the day, it was still Juno in _his body._

The weird thing was, he could still sense her like he had before, but it was nowhere near as overwhelming - like she'd been contained somehow by the possession of a physical body. But her presence was still startling to whatever it was in him that sensed whatever she was.

Despite the almost permanent sneer she wore, she was pleased that they'd followed the agreement. She'd only shown up with two men, men who were First Will cultists and not affiliated with Abstergo at all - at least, as far as Desmond was able to determine, after checking the Abstergo networks he could access while they ate lunch.

(And honestly? That was hilarious on its own. Juno ate like she hated the very act of it, like the need to eat - or perhaps the food served - was an affront to _her, specifically_ somehow.)

After lunch was the beginning of their trip to Norilsk, which included an 18 hour layover in Frankfurt, and an overnight layover in Moscow, before their final plane to the Norilsk airport. Galina should be arranging their transportation from that point to the remote area Shaun had discovered, and promised she'd have all the gear and food they needed for at least two weeks' worth of cold-weather travel and camping. Desmond honestly couldn't imagine camping with Juno; this had already been surreal enough.

He was grateful he didn't actually have to talk to anybody if he didn't want to. His plan was to text Rebecca and Shaun as needed, but otherwise keep a low profile. They hadn't bothered hiding his case; at this point, more people knew he didn’t ‘need’ it anymore than he preferred.

Still, he'd be happier if it was packed away. He could access their cell phone microphones and cameras if he absolutely had to at this point. He'd practiced, both on theirs (with their permission) and random cell phones he'd detected (without permission, but well, needs must).

He'd found out what he needed to know, at any rate, which is that he could, if he had to.

Every tiny delay and inconvenience only incensed Juno further - which, while hilarious, only made her more terrifying because all of their delays were huge delays. She'd occasionally make time to be super condescending in her fury, though, like "I'm still amazed you people managed flight" or "Incredible of you to have built even these, but I'm not surprised this was the limit of your ability" when their cab wasn't going fast enough to their accomodations for the evening.

Hilarious. But also very, very terrifying.

By the time they reached their destination, in Norilsk, there was not a single iota of happiness to be found for any one of them. The last leg of the journey had taken just over 4 hours, and Juno's incredible displeasure had even started to wear on her companions' nerves, though they were apparently very good at hiding that from her. That, or she didn’t care how they felt as long as they obeyed. Desmond felt the latter was probably more likely.

Galina had met them in Norilsk, and Desmond tried very hard not to pay specific attention to the fact that Shaun not only allowed her to hug him, but had hugged her back, genuine affection in his voice when they spoke. It was fine, it wasn't any of Desmond's business anyway. She’d even greeted Rebecca warmly as well, though Desmond didn’t pay as much attention to their interactions. 

She had procured an industrial vehicle that the miners used, one that was well-suited to crossing the terrain, though it was too large and loud to be inconspicuous. Their destination was remote enough that no one should even be around to detect them in the first place and anyone that followed wouldn’t be able to remain undetected. Shaun wasn't sure how long it would take them to get to the area, nor how long they'd have to take to find it - _if_ this was even the correct location, which he grudgingly admitted he couldn't guarantee.

She had also procured food for their trip, as well as better winter clothing (the secret was apparently layers) as well as camping and hiking gear. Shaun grumbled as he put on more layers, and Desmond tried hard not to be anything more than amused by it. 

Desmond was relieved when Rebecca halted the vehicle mid-morning on the fifth day of travel. The landscape was mostly featureless, cold, rocky ground as far as the eye could see, with occasional scraggly plant life to break up the hilly background of the horizon. His case was packed away at this point, so both Rebecca and Shaun were wearing discreet cameras and mics for him to pick up on what was happening around them. He hadn't even known about them until Shaun texted him before they left Norilsk to ask him to test the small devices. They were only hooked up to a power source and a small transmitter, but that was all that was needed for Desmond to have eyes and ears on the ground, as it were.

He’d been quite touched, because he'd expected to be mostly blind and deaf for this, following their cell signals until... Well, until either he couldn't, or they were back, he supposed.

"We're here?" Juno asked, craning her head around like that might reveal what it was she was after.

"According to my research, yes. I'd imagine the facility is underground. The notes I'd followed stated your people didn't want any humans stumbling on it by accident."

Juno glanced at one of her men, who shrugged back at her - apparently, she'd told them as much as she'd told the Assassins, and the result made her frown. "Very well. Proceed."

"Well, here's where my notes stop. There was mention of a special way to activate it, something only one of _your_ kind could do."

Juno paused for a moment, and she looked upset, but didn't say anything. Then she nodded. "We must find the markings on the ground, then, they will show the right place."

Then she just stood there. Shaun went to the vehicle, and pulled out the snow shovels Galina had purchased in Norilsk. He handed one to Rebecca, then both of Juno's men (they never bothered to offer their names and shockingly no one had felt chatty enough to ask), and then held one out to Juno herself.

She glared at him in surprised offense, and he grinned. "Well, you could sit this one out, but we don't know what we're looking for, and this will make it go faster," he said with a shrug, parking the shovel vertically in the snow and shoving the handle so it fell against her leg. "Might help if you stretch first, that body's always been unused to hard work."

Rebecca snickered, and her camera caught the flash of Shaun’s grin at her and a glimpse of the expression that followed that was too short to examine. Desmond's case was actually packed away, so he had no way to speak to them without using the phone buried underneath all the layers Shaun was wearing.

So he texted his exclamation of _Hey!_ and had a good chuckle that Shaun might have forgotten what that was about by the time he finally got to his phone.

It was quiet, though, as they worked. Juno worked like she couldn't believe every single movement she was making; she regarded every shovelful of snow like its existence was an offense to her personally, but even she was making headway, slow as she was.

Desmond took the time to feel out the area in the same way he’d felt out other peoples’ phones earlier - he felt something, below ground, deep. Something big that reminded him of the Temple. They were definitely near an Isu facility of some sort. 

Not long after, one of her men cried out, and Juno strode over to him, shovel left behind in the snow, and grinned in triumph. "Here," she said. "Clear out this area until you see the pattern has ended on all sides."

She then stood back and looked at Shaun in particular with an expression of expectation. Her men got to work immediately at her word, and Shaun glared back, brow raised, until Rebecca said something even the microphones both of them wore couldn't pick up, and he got to work himself.

Desmond could hear the grumbling under his breath, though, and he'd have smiled if he could have.

It took almost two hours, actually - the pattern on the ground was clear enough, once the snow and frozen dirt had been cleared away, it was just bigger than Desmond thought it might have been, which was saying something given how huge Isu architecture tended to be.

From what he could see of it, it looked much like the designs on the Apples, and the glowing parts of the Temple walls; it was round, but constructed almost like a mandala, with a central point that all the lines eventually led to.

Juno smiled, and strode towards the center of the circle. She raised her hand, and Desmond saw that she was wearing a thin golden bracelet, one he was certain she hadn't been wearing before, when she'd been shoveling snow.

There was a bright glow from the bracelet, and from the center of the pattern rose a small column as light started to creep along the lines of the design, from the center of the pattern towards the edges. Juno gestured to her men, who moved in close, and Shaun and Rebecca followed after a moment of hesitation.

Juno was faced away from them, and her men were looking at Shaun and Rebecca warily, but then there was a small metallic shuffling sound when the entire pattern was lit up, and the platform they were on started descending.

Desmond was immediately reminded of the Vault underneath the Vatican that Ezio had seen; he wondered if the other two were as well, but had no way to ask them, save a text they might not see for hours.

Or, you know, _ever._

He diverted his thoughts; it was just the tense atmosphere getting to him. Juno stayed facing the other direction, but her men kept their eyes on Rebecca and Shaun. Desmond almost felt a little bad for not knowing their names, but at this point, it was, well, pointless. Desmond didn’t put a lot of stock in Juno keeping her promise that she’d let the other two live if she got what she wanted and got out of Desmond’s body.

The platform wasn't exactly fast, but it was smooth, and aside from the soft hum of machinery that the microphones picked up, it was quiet. Desmond definitely had to give the Isu props - when they built something, they definitely built it to last. Desmond was half surprised Shaun didn't say something ridiculous to break the silence that grew heavier with every second.

Eventually, a doorway appeared and the moment the platform was level with the bottom, the doors slid into the wall with a soft hiss.

Juno strode forward, her men following behind, forcing Rebecca and Shaun to bring up the rear.

There was a much more elaborate doorway just down a short, brightly lit hall. There was a small pad set in a short pedestal just in front of the door, and here, Juno paused.

She only glanced at one of her men, who nodded back at her. Something about that made both Shaun and Rebecca step back a few feet; one of the men smirked at them, but both had stepped a few back from Juno and the pedestal themselves.

Juno placed her palm on the small pad, and it lit up briefly, then a golden light flashed above the door.

"Unauthorized Human entry detected," said a smooth female voice, in _English_ , which Desmond thought was interesting, though the ominous message was obviously a more pressing matter. Juno took her hand from the pad and stepped back, and Desmond caught just a sliver of the side of her face from Rebecca's camera - she was frowning, and though it wasn’t quite fear he saw, her expression betrayed her uncertainty.

"Humans are not authorized in this facility," the voice continued. "Your transgression has been recorded and will be reported."

Juno hadn’t even managed a full step backward before a harsh buzzing sound rose in volume so quickly that by the time the cameras Rebecca and Shaun wore shifted into motion to look for the source, Juno had let out a choked, pained cry, turned an awful sort of red as she, well, disintegrated and the bracelet she’d been wearing dropped to the ground with a sharp _clank_.

It happened so fast, and her men turned to look at her, then jerked back in shock just as quickly. Even Shaun let out a sharp cry and the camera's view jerked a bit to indicate his body had taken a sudden step back. Desmond picked up the soft gasp of his name that Rebecca made.

Then there was a quiet moment where everyone just seemed to stare at each other - again, he had to make assumptions since neither of the cameras showed his friends at all, but Juno's men were certainly staring at Shaun and Rebecca warily.

Then the two men nodded at each other, and reached for something behind their backs. Desmond could recognize when someone was retrieving a concealed weapon, so he wasn't surprised that Shaun and Rebecca moved immediately.

His view of the scuffle was extremely limited - in fact, Shaun's view was blocked by his opponent’s body; though Rebecca dropped the man she'd been facing, only mere seconds after she'd moved, Shaun had been a little less lucky and was locked in a grapple of some kind. Desmond could see blood on the long sleeve shirt Shaun wore, though he couldn't see the cut and wasn’t sure that was even Shaun’s blood. Rebecca, whose hands were now free, darted forward and shoved her hand hard against the man's back. The cameras couldn't pick up the near-silent snick of a hidden blade's propulsion, but the man convulsed slightly before he fell back from Shaun and collapsed on the floor with a pained grunt, and then silence, so Desmond had a good idea what had just happened.

"Desmond!" she gasped the moment the body was on the ground, and Shaun looked away from the body and towards her. He looked so distraught, and yet shocked, like he hadn't ever considered this possibility, and Desmond couldn’t blame him.

"We can't... Rebecca, we can't stay," he said, and Desmond hated for the moment that he had no voice, couldn't just call out to get their attention.

Wait...

The sharp trills and harsh beats of Rebecca's ringtone made both Rebecca and Shaun startle. He couldn't see her expression from Shaun's camera, but he could see the moment Shaun realized that it was Desmond 'calling' her. They had no service, no network, but the phones themselves were still on and Desmond could use them just as he’d used the computer, or his case. 

She realized it shortly after, because she answered not a moment after, immediately placing the call on speaker between her and Shaun. "Desmond?" she asked.

"Yeah, it's me. You can't leave yet. I can get in there."

"What? How on earth do you know?"

"I can sense this place; there's something here. Just give me some time. If nothing else, I can let you know what it was for."

Shaun looked torn - his own vast curiosity warred with his desire to get far from this place. Then he got thoughtful. "Desmond, is Juno in there?"

Desmond paused, and reached out with whatever it was that his senses even were now. "No, I can't feel her at all."

"Are you _sure?_ " Rebecca asked.

"Yeah. Even when she was in my body, I could sense her. Her presence was... It was overwhelming. In my body, it was muted, but I could still _feel_ her, like... Like you could feel sunlight. And when, when the computer uh, killed her, I couldn't feel her anymore after that. I feel nothing now. When she was in that body, her presence was muted, but noticeable. Like a bright, sunny day in the middle of winter. The air is cold, but you can feel the sun, and the longer you stay in it, the stronger it gets. But when she was, uh, free, it was like a hot summer day in Arizona. There was no escaping it, it was all you could feel, almost all you could think about, save for how much you wanted to get away from it."

Shaun's lips turned into a wry smirk. "Descriptive," he said. "Well, we did bring gear for at least a couple week's worth of camping," he said, and from Shaun's camera, Desmond could see Rebecca's hands move to indicate she'd shrugged. Shaun stood, then. "Let's at least find out what all the fuss was about - I could barely find this place at all, there was nothing about what it _did._ "

"Man, I can't believe you were the first one to suggest camping out," she said. "We're in for a fun couple of days."

Desmond laughed, and he could see Shaun's exaggerated scowl, but he was thankful they were giving him the chance. After all, they had no way of knowing if anyone from Abstergo would be following Juno, or if she'd somehow come without alerting anyone of her plans or whereabouts, save the two men chosen to accompany her. Galina would find any followers, no doubt, but she had no way to contact them quickly and only had a rough idea of where Shaun and Rebecca would be - if she had to find them, there's no guarantee she could do so fast enough.

Either way, they weren't out of the woods yet.

~

Neither Shaun nor Rebecca wanted him to get started until they'd erected their camp, but mostly so they could discuss possible dangers the site itself presented.

The two weren't going to camp down the elevator, and neither wanted to pick up the bracelet to try and activate it again, so they decided to climb out instead, which was only possible because the walls were textured with that weird Isu architecture they loved so much, so there were plenty of hand and footholds; it was just tedious, which was, of course, Shaun's favorite.

The quiet complaining he did with the breath he had filled Desmond with a rush of fondness.

They argued for a moment about how they would camp for the night, but due to the fact that they didn’t want to stray too far from the site, they decided to set up the tent. So they started a three-way call between them on headsets they unpacked, and set up their tent and pads, sleeping bags, and food storage, and discussed possibilities. Not just what the site could be, but the possibility of being followed; by Juno’s cult, or by Abstergo; or how likely retaliation might be from either group; whether or not Juno had shared these plans with anyone.

What to do if she had; if they were attacked while here and the likelihood of Galina being able to find them. There was some comfort that at least any sort of attack wouldn't be a surprise; there was very little cover out here. Unless either group had stealth technology no one had heard of, a surprise attack seemed impossible. No one mentioned that the Isu had a lot of tech, all of it advanced and so much of it outside their realm of knowledge.

Which meant, as shitty as it was, the decision at that point might be to run or fight - and no one was under any illusions that the second choice almost certainly meant death.

"Alright, Desmond," Shaun said, still panting slightly, "Recon only, yeah? Don't push any buttons, _especially_ those that say 'vaporize the surrounding area'."

"Shaun!" Rebecca chided, but her tone didn't even try to hide her weak smile. "Anyway, at the very least, we want to know what this place was. If we can get something out of it, great, but if not, maybe try to see if there's a way to hide it again."

"Aye, aye, sirs," Desmond replied. He'd have saluted, of course, if he could have, but that would have to do. "I'll keep the call up as long as I can; you guys aren't that far, but who knows how long I can maintain the connection while going underground."

"Sure," she replied. Desmond knew they understood that even he didn't know his limits yet. "Shaun, do you want a cold ham sandwich or a cold turkey sandwich?"

Desmond was already on his way, but Shaun's aggrieved sigh and grumpy "Turkey" brought another rush of heady affection. But, they had business to take care of, so he carefully ignored it and focused on maintaining the connection to their phones as long as he could. The line was closed, almost forcefully, after he'd made some progress, but they'd known he might not be able to sustain it, so they shouldn't worry. He hoped they didn't worry. Shaun would probably worry, but he'd also say that that was basically his job anyway.

He was careful entering the facility, poked around the pad at the entrance, traced the energy of the sensor at the door, but neither reacted to his presence.

Desmond followed the signal he sensed earlier, somewhere deep inside the facility, and was able to insert himself into the system easily; it was a little unnerving how comfortable he felt inside Isu systems. He had so much space, but felt comfortingly confined, like he couldn't just dissipate in the air.

The first thing he looked for was whatever it was that had destroyed Juno. He didn't want to accidentally set anything like that off, so he felt that was the best starting point.

It didn't actually take him long. Whether it was his familiarity with the Isu systems, the fact that it was very recently activated, or it was just fantastically easy to find due to its dangerous nature, he couldn't say. But he carefully poked around it; made sure his interaction was limited to looking only, and not in any way ‘touching’.

Still, 'just looking' gave him confidence he could disable it, which was good. It also made him comfortable enough to start delving into the nature of the facility.

If he had breath, what he found would take it away. Or, more accurately, he realized, _give it back_.

This facility was called a Cradle, and it was the origin of the human race. Or one of them, at least, though this particular Cradle appeared to be a backup of the main 'building' facilities more than anything given a note about the ‘reduced production capacity’ he’d found. This facility was dormant, however, save for the few security systems left online, so he couldn't exactly activate the cameras under his promise to Rebecca and Shaun that he wouldn't mess with anything. But he _could_ access much of the facility's information, since that was all just sitting there.

Cradles like this one had been used to just build humans from scratch; they even allowed enough genetic diversity to ensure that humans could reproduce themselves without much risk from too small a genetic pool.

The Isu had also created other life forms here, all of which were also enslaved and used for whatever purposes the Isu had bred them for. Most were service related - for construction or for war, but some were just because the Isu wanted them to exist, like certain species of birds or fish, to serve as pleasing decorations that could move about on their own, and be tended to by their human servants.

Desmond knew that he was going to activate the facility - this was the only way to get himself a body again, since Juno had destroyed his. He wasn't sure exactly how, since he had no access to the specific systems, or tools, or whatever it was yet, but it had to be possible because Juno had intended to do it herself. Or, she would have, once she knew what this place was for. Why else would the others have hidden the knowledge from her?

Now, he just had to convince his friends.

~

By the time he was able to tap into his friends' phones again, more than two hours had passed. He'd taken his time, making sure he read everything he reasonably could about the facility before returning.

Rebecca and Shaun were apparently bickering about the best way to hang the lantern in the tent, because they only had the one. Normally, Desmond would let them continue uninterrupted, because their stupid arguments were one of his little pleasures, but this time he interrupted Rebecca by making both of their phones blare out an alarm at the same time with a conference call.

Both picked up immediately, talking over each other in their eagerness to ask the same question.

"What did you find?" "Well? What is it?"

Desmond laughed. "Guys, you're not gonna believe this," he said, then trailed off, just to annoy them. He liked to make a little wager with himself about who would break first.

Shaun didn't even bother waiting. "I cannot believe you're doing this, Desmond, get on with it!" Rebecca laughed a little under her breath; it was quiet, but Desmond could still pick it up. He could feel the phantom sensation of his cheeks warming from a huge grin.

And now he could have that back again. "It's a facility for building humans. They called it the Cradle."

"For, for _building humans?_ " Shaun repeated, and from Rebecca's camera, Desmond could see him start to shake his head, then stop halfway through the first. "Desmond..."

Rebecca let out a low whistle. "Well, now we know why Juno wanted this place. Do you think it could build an Isu body?"

"I don't know," he said, but he hadn't looked for that specific answer. "I did figure out how to disable the defensive system so that you guys could camp out inside, though," he offered.

Shaun let out a sigh. "Desmond, we need to be careful and think this through." Desmond hated that Shaun was bringing this up, but at least he could see that Shaun himself was struggling with the burden of caution.

"I know," he said. "But look, we don't know who could be coming. The answer might be no one, but there's no safe way to transmit this information except face to face, and by the time we can do that, who knows what or who might be here when we return."

" _If_ we returned," Shaun breathed, then sighed. Rebecca didn't bother speaking up, and Desmond could just see her in Shaun's camera, looking at Shaun with a troubled expression as the man sat and thought about their options.

"Did you see anything about destroying the facility?" he asked after a moment, and Rebecca caught her breath for a moment, but cut her soft admonition off before it was more than a harsh exhale.

"I didn't," Desmond admitted. "There wasn't all that much that was available without waking the facility, but I'll admit, I didn't look into that. I can go back in, though, if you'd like me to check."

"No, we should all go together if we're going back in," he said. "Alright, we'll go in, but just to look around and get information. No activating the facility and building yourself a body," he admonished, and Desmond laughed. He hoped to change Shaun’s mind, and felt they had a little bit of time to do so.

"Got it, want to do it tomorrow?"

"Christ, no. I'll come with you while Rebecca breaks down the camp," he said, and turned to get up, which dropped Rebecca from his camera's view, but not before Desmond could see her thoughtful nod.

He had a feeling that he knew what that was about, and it gave him a pang, but he knew that Shaun making Rebecca stay behind wasn't because he didn't trust Desmond was going to kill him on purpose by failing to deactivate the defenses. He trusted Desmond, but it was still smarter to leave at least one of them behind just in case Desmond was wrong.

He wasn't an idiot; he knew Shaun was literally trusting Desmond with his life. Desmond had no intention of actually risking Shaun’s life - Shaun did that himself more than enough for the two of them.

"Wait up here, let me tell you when I'm certain," he said, but Shaun shook his head.

"It'll take me a while to climb back down," he said. "Go on ahead; maybe you'll be done by the time I get down so I won't have to wait."

He grabbed a few coils of rope and some other gear that Desmond couldn't identify, then Desmond saw him make his way to the edge. Rebecca, on her camera, started rolling her sleeping bag back up, without saying a word.

Desmond rushed back to the facility. He had no choice but to marvel at Isu technology or craftsmanship, because the facility woke up as easily as any computer Desmond had ever used. While some systems seemed to be always running, all at once he could feel more systems come online, and as soon as he had the ability to, he disconnected everything he could see that so much as touched the security system he’d found and opened the facility door. He reactivated and accessed the camera at the entryway, from which he could see that the pillar Juno had placed her hand on had retracted, leaving only her bracelet on the ground in the middle of the wide hall that led to the door, and the corpses of her men a few feet away. One by one, he reactivated the other facility cameras, and he could see from one of them that the entry door was wide open, just as the system had reported to him. The facility had, in a sense, already been activated, but not as he thought Shaun had meant the word. He couldn't exactly access any of the actual hardware of the facility, yet - he didn’t even know what he’d be looking for, but the whole place was nearly awake, though. It felt like it was ready, waiting.

Interestingly, he _did_ see that the security program took a copy of the DNA from the body it vaporized; apparently this was standard procedure, possibly part of the ‘recording’ the computer had announced just before disintegrating Juno. He couldn't quite understand any information beyond that without some work at deciphering the language and technical jargon involved, but he supposed it made sense that the Isu would want to be able to confirm who specifically had tried to access this place while also immediately punishing the offender.

He watched Shaun make his way down to the bottom, and found he could access his phone here. Since it was just Shaun, he didn't bother using the call, just spoke into Shaun's earpiece, "Hey, it's open. All good, I promise."

There was a pause, and then Shaun cleared his throat, a little awkwardly. Desmond could just see him on the screen, enough to see that he turned away from the bodies they'd left there. "Okay, glad to know you can get to me from in there," he said.

Desmond watched his progress as he approached where they'd been before. He paused for a moment, looking thoughtfully at Juno's bracelet and then squared his shoulders and stepped forward.

Desmond would be holding his breath if he could, but as Shaun stepped towards the open doorway, nothing happened aside from the soft echo of his thick boots on the strange stone floor, and he made it inside the facility unharmed.

He watched Shaun look around, and he did the same, now that he had the cameras to do so.

"This is astonishingly large," Shaun said, which echoed Desmond's sentiments exactly. The chamber they were in was basically a cavern, with rows upon rows of machines Desmond hadn’t identified yet.

Shaun pulled off his large hood, and tugged his phone from his pocket. He started snapping pictures, and Desmond got an idea. It took him a few moments to figure out how to do so, but he took a still image from one of the cameras, of Shaun holding his phone up, clearly taking photos. Then he had to spend a few moments figuring out how to actually send the picture he'd taken, but he did manage to 'text' Rebecca the photo anyway - or, at least he thought he did. He wasn't going to snoop to see if he managed to beat Shaun about it, but the idea gave him a small chuckle.

"Rebecca will be down when she's finished," Shaun said, and Desmond nodded.

"Yeah - I thought it'd be more comfortable for you guys in here," he said. "Hopefully, we can get some interesting stuff before we have to leave."

Desmond knew what he wanted from the facility, but knew he at least had to go along with the plan of not actually building himself a body just yet. He'd have to convince them first, and he felt he had a good chance.

Shaun wandered around slowly, taking pictures of consoles and machines, even the walls, and had nearly completed a full circuit of the big room by the time Rebecca joined them. There were other small rooms or hallways accessed from the main room, but Desmond hadn't exactly found a blueprint yet.

"Even bigger than it looked in the photos," Rebecca murmured, once she'd entered the big room, loud enough for the mic she wore to pick up. "Find anything interesting yet?"

The question was directed at Shaun, but Desmond answered. "I haven't touched anything yet," he said, which was well and good, because Shaun just gave her a look of pure disbelief.

Desmond laughed and Rebecca joined in, and dropped the pack with their stuff near the doorway.

Shaun, apparently deciding he had enough photos - for now, at least - made his way towards Rebecca. "I can certainly believe this was a site they used to build people," he said then gestured at the rows of machines that dominated the large room. "Some of these look like adult size incubators. But there's other machines too, smaller ones."

He led her to one of them, and Desmond kept an ear on their conversation, but they were just discussing possibilities, and the difficulty of building fully grown humans, and whether that meant the chicken really did come before the egg.

Desmond spent his time delving into the files. He found entries that indicated the other rooms weren't nearly as vast as this one, and that this facility could create more than just humans. He knew he'd have to tell his friends, and for a brief, angry moment, he thought about doing so only after he'd gone ahead and built himself a body, but he knew he couldn't do it. It wouldn’t be right.

So he gathered and copied all relevant information, and waited until the pair had finished setting up their sleeping bags in here - there wasn't anything heating the room that he could tell, but the temperature in the facility was definitely warmer than outside, and down here, there was no chance of precipitation or wind in here.

"So," Rebecca said, while the two sat cross-legged on their sleeping bags, "Report, what'd we find?"

Shaun made a gesture towards the facility, "Desmond, care to go first?"

"Well, this facility definitely built humans. Also animals. They were able to program the animals and humans to their specific needs, but apparently some of the animals were just for aesthetics," he said. The two nodded at his words, glancing at some of the smaller machines alongside the clearly human-making cradles.

"It couldn't really build an Isu body, though, not that I can see; they can use existing DNA as a template of sorts, but these weren’t made for building anything bigger than humans; an Isu body wouldn't even fit in one of the cradles, even the infant cradles would be too small to build a baby Isu."

Shaun couldn't fully suppress his laugh. "So, if she was here for a body for herself, the only one that she could make would be a human body?"

Desmond made a thoughtful noise. "Right now, yeah. If she had the know-how and the tools to modify the Cradles, then maybe not?"

Rebecca grinned. "Don't think I missed that mention of a template," she said, and Desmond made a very fake, obvious cough noise. He hadn't been going for subtle.

"Later," Shaun said. "As far as I can see, there's no damage to the building, no sign that time has even touched the place. No sign that any humans ever found it," he added, with a wince. Given the welcome they were originally given, that certainly made sense.

Rebecca nodded."Cool. Or not, because we have to bring it down," she said, like it was obvious, and Shaun sighed.

"It would be great if we could," he agreed. "We certainly don't have the resources to defend this site, and we definitely don't want the Templars getting their hands on a place like this."

"About that," Desmond said. "I think one of the spaces here houses more artifacts. They might have even been able to create small ones here, but I think those machines have been removed."

Both turned to look at their phones in shock, and Desmond laughed a little. "I haven't explored everything, I don't know if they're still in there; only that they used to be; if there are cameras in the room, they’re either damaged or something, because I can’t detect them."

Shaun sighed. "Of course. More reason to destroy it all if we could."

"I'll look into that," Desmond said. "I'm surprised they didn't already, somehow - maybe they hoped to use it after the catastrophe," he mused.

"Then why didn't they?"

"Dunno. It is pretty remote, and maybe the humans didn't agree with the plan," he said. "We know they were working together more after the catastrophe. But maybe knowledge of this specific location wasn't widespread, either."

Shaun made a thoughtful noise. "Well, we'll never get a satisfactory answer to that."

"Yeah, I know,” he agreed. “But we don't know that Juno is gone forever - just that I couldn't feel her after my body was destroyed. I can't promise that means she's gone for good, and it would be stupid of us to assume so."

Rebecca laughed. "Well, thanks for the sobering reminder. Whatever we do, we should do it quickly."

"I’d need to fully wake up the facility either way, so I'll get started on that. You guys think about letting me build a body for myself; it took a sample of my DNA before it, well, destroyed my original body, so... The information is here, and ready to go."

Both gave each other troubled looks, and nodded. "Sure, we'll just discuss while we eat," Rebecca said.

"I won't listen in," he promised. "Stand up and wave when you're ready to talk to me - the facility's cameras don't have sound."

Desmond dutifully severed his connection with the cameras and microphones the pair wore, and made sure he kept an eye on the facility camera that had the best view of the two.

Then he set about actually exploring the facility and its systems and starting diagnostics; it responded quickly, so much more quickly than he expected. In fact, apparently some things had started running automatically at some point after they’d arrived, though he hadn’t identified those processes yet. Also, they’d apparently done so quietly - the facility cameras had no sound but neither Shaun nor Rebecca had noticed anything - nothing they’d mentioned, anyway, and their phones’ microphones hadn’t picked up anything either. 

So he did what he said he would while the facility continued its checks, all sorts of programs running in the background; He explored the system, looking for plans and schematics, a way to understand how this place worked, or any way to destroy the facility. He found even more than he hoped.

The first thing he confirmed was that Juno couldn't have built an Isu body here, at least, not without some serious modification to the machinery or the body she wanted to build. As he’d said, the enclosed 'cradles' wouldn't fit an Isu body - it wasn't just the height, however, but the size and shape of their skulls wouldn't physically fit in the space provided, either.

But, if she could gain possession of the facility, a DNA sample of sufficient quality, and the ability to modify the cradle, she could theoretically build herself a replica of her body. If she couldn’t modify the cradles to do that, she could probably build a body that was as close as any human-sized body could get. Even if she herself doesn’t understand DNA, he had no doubt she had access to either people who could, or at the very least, had access to sources to educate her human tools to do what she needed.

The entire trail of thought was chilling, and exactly why Desmond was in favor of just destroying the facility, even if he wasn't able to get his own body back.

He also found, indirectly, a legend for what else the facility stored - or could create. Not only did they have Apples stored there currently, according to the records, which was bad enough, the facility did also have the capability of manufacturing more. It was just an efficient arrangement - humans were built to respond to a certain kind of signal, and they built the device that broadcast that signal here as well - plenty of subjects to make sure the devices worked, he supposed.

All the more reason to bring it down, of course. There was no way any of this could fall into Templar hands. Hell, he didn't want any of it in Assassin hands, either.

Still, while it may be a little selfish, he looked into rebuilding his body, and he confirmed - it would only take six hours to build a body. Intriguingly, there were some options available - the facility couldn't actually build an infant from the sample of DNA taken when his body was vaporized, but he could build a body starting around age 8 or so, all the way up to around age 20. He couldn't build himself an older body than that, so if he did this, he'd be younger than he was. Not ideal, but he'd take it if it meant having a body back.

And while he had some good guesses about the reasons for limitations on age ranges for ‘producable’ humans, it just made him mad to think about. 

He wasn't really paying attention to the camera, though, as when he consciously looked at it, the two were wandering around and looking up, as if looking for - oh. Cameras, right.

He reactivated his connection to their cameras, and cleared his virtual throat. "You guys done?" he asked, and Shaun huffed, exasperated, and Rebecca laughed.

"Yeah, what were you doing?"

"Looking at the schematics or whatever, sorry. There's a lot of stuff here. What'd you guys decide?"

Rebecca and Shaun wandered back to their sleeping bags and each sat down.

"Well," she started, drawing the word out, and Desmond wanted to sigh. "Can you guarantee you can get yourself like, in the body?"

Desmond paused. "Not, I mean, not yet," he said. "I haven't looked fully at the process, though," he added, and Shaun carefully turned his head away from Rebecca (and her camera).

"We don't... If you can't guarantee it, Desmond, we don't think it's a good idea," she said. "Then we'll have this... Not-Desmond running around to take care of and you'll still be what you are. We can't do that."

Desmond one hundred percent understood that stance. In fact, he hadn't even considered what happened to the body if he couldn't put himself inside it, and he appreciated that they did. He _should_ have considered it, though, _especially_ after the testing facility and their victims, and how torn he’d been about his choice there.

But the answer still hurt. 

"You're right," he said, instead, and he was pretty sure it came out completely normal, not as shaky as he felt. "Well, I can spend the night continuing the search for a self destruct, or something," he said. "You guys should get some rest."

He withdrew after he said that - not before he heard Rebecca's soft, sympathetic gasp of his name, but the important thing is _they_ didn't know he'd heard it, so he could just ignore it.

~

Desmond would swear on anything that he had spent the night doing only two things; looking for a way to destroy the Cradle, and to copy every scrap of information he could find for them to sort through later.

At first, it was only the destruction thing, until he discovered that there had been at least three other Cradles, in other places on the planet, one of which was the main one, the ‘big one’ where humans had first been built. Then, of course, he had to search for any other important or relevant information he could find. He shuttled as much as he could to his case, still packed away in the vehicle, but there was both so much available, and he was still doing that at the same time as basically going through what passed for Isu technical documentation about the facility itself.

The thing is, the Cradle was big - as all Isu infrastructure tended to be, both physically and digitally, it seemed - and despite learning many new tricks, he was still only human, he couldn't keep an eye on everything. Even if he could, he hadn't learned how to discern the ‘everything’ that needed an eye.

Also, as he’d discovered earlier, the Cradle worked silently. The Cradle's cameras had no sound, and his video feeds certainly didn't show any flashing lights or fog going on around any of the machines. He found this out only when he was alerted, hours later, that the body was done.

Which body? _His_ body, actually, or the reconstruction that the Cradle had apparently automatically begun when it had vaporized his real body, the one Juno had hijacked. Apparently this had been one of the 'security programs' that he’d disconnected, but it had started building the body almost immediately after it had vaporized the original, so when he’d ended the connection to the security system after he’d returned with Shaun, it meant nothing; the process had already been started, and the connection had no longer been active at that time, so he hadn’t known to investigate it further.

He thought he'd had a good lead on that self-destruct, but obviously this new notification took precedence. First of all, he'd found out how Juno had gotten herself into his body - apparently that was an old trick of the Isu, of sorts; they were able to move human consciousness (or at least, the 'personality and memories') from one vessel to another. The main use of which was transporting their favored human servants' minds to a new vessel once the old one had become too worn out to be of proper service, of course.

The only reason Juno (or any other Isu) hadn't turned to it as a solution to the decline of their people, was that her own experiment with her lover Aita had proven that human minds and bodies were physically unable to contain an Isu mind - at least not without extreme harm to the Isu themselves. In this, they regarded human minds as little better than those of any other animal they constructed in these Cradles.

Then again, Juno had had eons to think of how to fix any issues. After all, hadn’t she possessed Desmond’s body in a similar manner? Was it different? Or was it that she didn’t care about the consequences, given that she probably expected it to be a short term borrowing of his body and not a permanent relocation into it?

Or maybe her mind was already 'brittle' and it no longer mattered?

They'll likely never know at this point.

He just knew he absolutely had to keep any knowledge of the Cradles from anyone on the planet. Templars with the ability to build themselves whole new bodies when they were old enough? When Assassins successfully killed them?

Assassins who wanted to live forever, fight forever? He couldn't tell anyone what they were, where they were - well, aside from the information Shaun had. He sent a quick note about this new information regarding the other Cradles, and then paused, because, well, now their worst fears had actually happened.

They had a 'not-Desmond' body that was here, and Desmond wasn't in it. Well, he wasn't in it _yet_ , and maybe he couldn't get into it, but the process seemed simple enough that it was even automated. The system had a 'construct' it was ready to load into the body, a ‘map’ of some kind that it had taken when it had killed Desmond, but that wasn't _him_ \- at the very least, it would probably be the version of him that had 'died' in the Temple, without any of his new memories. Or it might be the current version that contained Juno's thoughts and memories instead of Desmond himself. The system also had a more generic, randomized neural map, to birth a whole new person, if they wished.

Most importantly, the body wasn't actually alive yet. It was in stasis, basically, kept inert by the machine that had created it. It was up to him what would happen here.

His options, as he saw them, were to A) attempt to take the body himself, which may fail, B) leave the body to die when the Cradle was destroyed or C) try A, but let Shaun and Rebecca know so they can deal with whatever the body was when they woke _if_ he’d managed to actually activate it somehow, whether it was a blank slate human with his face, or... Or whatever. He was fairly confident that any failure to get in the body wouldn't harm him as he was, but he knew he couldn't be certain of that.

As far as he knew, they'd have no way of knowing which, well, cradle held the body. Even at this point, none were lit up at all - presumably the information was on some console they'd have no hope of reading since they didn't read Isu (which might be a ‘yet’ kind of thing rather than a permanent situation given all the samples of Isu language they now had), and wouldn't have the time to hack into the system to translate anything.

The destruction of the Cradle had to happen much more quickly than that.

He already knew he was going to try and get into that body, and he’d learned how to destroy the facility - he just needed to ensure he could destroy this facility on a timer first. He dove back into the system to search out the necessary information, but kept an eye on that particular cradle, just in case.

He only hoped his friends wouldn't be too disappointed in him.


	26. Chapter 26

Shaun was awoken by a rough shake, and Desmond's voice a harsh whisper-shout that didn't quite make sense to his groggy brain.

"Shaun, get up, but don't be mad!"

Shaun grumbled, opening his eyes, but whatever no doubt scathing thing he'd been about to say, his mouth went slack at the sight that greeted him.

It was Desmond, but not as Shaun had ever known him. For one, he looked, well, kind of young. He was also missing the scar that had preoccupied Shaun's thoughts far more than it should have. Oh, and he was naked. That, that too.

Shaun forced his eyes back to Desmond's face, then realized what must have happened.

"Rebecca?" he shouted in her direction, going to wake her. "Desmond?" he glanced to his phone, and saw the blinking notification for missed messages, but the Desmond in front of him shook his head, hands in front of him.

"No, no, it's me, I need clothes before you wake her up, come on!"

Rebecca grumbled and raised her head in his direction. "Wha's the 'mergency?"

"Open your eyes," he hissed. "Desmond is here. Maybe. There's a body."

Rebecca opened her eyes fully, and he could actually see her wake up, her eyes growing wide once she took in Desmond's crouched form, now desperately trying to use one edge of Shaun's sleeping bag to shield himself.

"Desmond!" she gasped, and Shaun shook his head.

" _Maybe_ ," he stressed, though he desperately wanted to believe it.

Desmond sighed. "It's me, I swear," he said.

Shaun barked a harsh laugh. "Well, _Desmond_ agreed that he wouldn't build a body, so..."

"I didn't!" Desmond protested, and Shaun raised his brow and pointedly looked him up and down, definitely only to prove a point and not to try and remember details for... Later.

Rebecca laughed, but she moved closer. "Besides, Desmond didn't look like that. Where's your scar?"

Desmond grinned at her, and, well, yes, _that_ looked exactly like Desmond. "Scars don't affect DNA," he said with a laugh. "Also, they were only interested in building bodies at peak strength, so this was as old as it went. But, I swear I didn't - it wasn't me. It was, uh, 'built' automatically after my original body was incinerated. There was... I dunno, this option to load the brain scan it took as it was vaporizing me, uh, Juno in me really, but obviously that wasn't really a choice. I wasn't really sure if I could get into it myself, but I could!"

"Built automatically?" Shaun asked “That's awfully convenient."

Rebecca smacked his arm. "Hush. Are you actually mad he's back?"

" _Is_ he back?" Shaun muttered, but Desmond shook his head.

"Yeah, to interrogate the infiltrator probably, since they could upload his brain," Desmond answered, apparently ignoring Shaun. Great.

"Look," Shaun cut in, "How can we be certain it's you?"

Desmond sighed, for a moment he looked smug, but then his expression turned sad. "I can't prove it, obviously. I sent messages to your phones, though at this point I could hardly remember them word for word, but I sent them in case, y'know, it didn't work."

"Why didn't you do the brain upload option?" he asked, moving to read his messages since it wasn't like Desmond was armed, or could go anywhere, really.

"Wow, this is familiar," he said, with a small, wry smile. "First of all, existential questions about ‘what is a man?’ aside, I saw two problems. One, it might have included Juno somehow. And two, even if it managed to copy everything, what if it could have only copied the 'me' up until the Temple where my body's memories stop? But also, wouldn’t there then be two of me? That didn't seem right," he murmured.

Shaun was half-listening, and while he'd love to get into a debate about that, especially given everything they'd been through recently, he was actually getting angry, because Desmond's messages were, well, deeply unsatisfying to say the least.

"You started a self destruct already?" he asked, glancing around. They had _just_ gotten here, after all, and while time was of the essence and all that, that was terribly fast indeed, especially now.

"What?" Rebecca squawked, sitting up from where she'd been leaning in to speak with Desmond, to poke at his face.

Desmond nodded, though. "Yeah, on a timer. We've got 72 hours, I said that."

“Christ," Shaun grumbled, but finally slid fully out of his sleeping bag, giving Desmond a little more material to protect whatever dignity he thought he had for a few moments while he rummaged through his bag for clothing. "I wasn't exactly packing more than the essentials," he grumbled, and handed over a pair of slacks and a t-shirt. The Cradle was warm enough, at least, but they were in the middle of the arctic and weren't carrying spare winter gear.

Desmond accepted the clothing gratefully, and Shaun stood and pulled Rebecca away, who gave playful protests. It would give them a chance to speak quietly, at least, so he dragged her near the entrance.

"What a mess," he murmured.

Rebecca smiled. "Is it, though? I mean, sure, getting out of here is gonna be a pain, but... Desmond's back! You don't really think it's not him, do you?"

Shaun shook his head. "No, I don't," he agreed. It would be weird, but he'd adjust, and William... He'd have his son back.

Maybe. If Desmond wanted to be an Assassin again, that was. He might not want to after all of this, after he finally had a body again. Would he even _want_ to tell his father about this?

She smiled and patted his shoulder. "It'll all work out," she said. "He's back, and we can decide the rest later. We gotta start packing, since we don't know how much damage destroying the facility will cause, or how much attention it will receive.”

Shaun laughed, then cocked his head as he considered their options. “Hmmm, might be a good idea to leak a bit of info to a few places, see if we can use that to take up some Templar attention and money," he murmured. He knew a few 'sources' that would welcome this information, and knew the right ears to pass it along into.

Rebecca grinned. “See? Already got a plan, there you are. We've also got a ton of information to sort ourselves - Desmond said he sent as much as he could to our phones, laptops, cloud storage. Who knows what we'll find.”

Shaun hummed in agreement. "That's true enough," he murmured, and chanced a glance back to where Desmond had been changing.

He was sitting on the sleeping bag, looking at his hands, poking at his bare feet, running his fingers over his mouth...

Shaun cleared his throat. "So, we need to get going," he said. "Seventy-two hours isn't as much as it might seem - do you know how the facility destroys itself?" he asked.

Desmond perked up at his voice. "Actually, yeah - the interiors will be wiped clean first, the equipment and uh, storage basically vaporized. Then certain structural points will be targeted and it will bring the walls down."

Shaun raised an eyebrow. That meant, even if the Templars were to spend time and money excavating, they wouldn't find anything but Isu architecture, and they had plenty of examples of that already.

"Just in case, we should head out as soon as we can, watch from a reasonable distance, just to make sure it works."

Desmond glanced down at himself, and sighed. "Ugh, and you didn't pack a spare coat," he said.

Shaun laughed, and felt something in his chest fall loose, felt his shoulders relax. "You're lucky I did pack spare shoes. Come on, we'll figure something out."

~

It didn’t take long to pack up everything; Rebecca and Shaun were fairly efficient, and Desmond just sat and watched as their gear was collapsed and stowed.

Maybe Shaun spent more time than he should just watching Desmond, but who on Earth could blame him? Rebecca limited herself to sly looks and smirks when Desmond wasn't looking, but that wasn't anything he wasn't used to.

He was annoyed that he'd completely forgotten Juno's men, still lying in the entry hallway, but as distasteful as it was, their arctic gear would keep Desmond much warmer than Shaun's extra clothing - and would mean they wouldn't have to try to trade off.

Desmond wrinkled his nose at the idea, but didn't protest - he only grumbled a little that the shoes that would fit on his feet were far too big for him, but Shaun threw him an extra pair of socks to fill the space, and that was that.

After that they had to trek back to the vehicle they'd come in, and moved it to a nearby low hill with some tree cover to wait. They had a couple days to kill, and while they didn't have the resources to keep the vehicle running continuously for that long and still get them back, they did pack snow up the sides and ran it for an hour to get it warmed up and planned to dart outside for timed bathroom breaks.

It wasn't exactly roomy, but it wasn't as cramped as it could be, either. Without the option to get away, Shaun kept his complaining to a minimum; A) he was in a vehicle with two Assassins who knew how to kill people in a desolate area where a body would be easily hidden and B) they had something _much_ more interesting to talk about anyway.

Namely, Desmond. And whether he'd been telling the truth about what happened before the destruction of the building was set.

He looked at Rebecca until she glanced back at him and caught his gaze. He lifted a shoulder in Desmond's direction and she shrugged and shook her head slightly.

He didn't bother holding back his sigh. She didn't want to interrogate Desmond about his claims, which meant it was up to Shaun.

It wasn't actually whether or not Desmond's body was built on purpose. That, like a lot of his interactions with Desmond lately, would come down to faith, belief in Desmond and whether he'd do something like that.

And in this case, Shaun believed Desmond wouldn't, not after they'd discussed the risks. That wasn't his biggest concern, though.

"So, Desmond," he began, and Desmond cocked his head with a raised brow. Well, Shaun knew he hadn't exactly been subtle. "What really happened in there?"

Desmond sighed, then shrugged. "I'm not sure how to explain all of it," he said, with a thoughtful frown. His hand briefly went to his mouth again, brushed against where his scar had been, then he shook his head. "I mean, it was, I wasn't in there long you know? The system, I mean. I didn't know it as well as I knew the Temple, and you know how well that was - I was still learning things when you guys arrived. But the system like, sent an alert that a process had completed. And it was the body, _this_ body. Given the nature of this site, it's obvious why the Isu wouldn't want humans anywhere near it. There were other reasons for the neural upload option, though - some Isu had favorite human servants, you know. They wanted to keep them, and just... you know, after decades of service, bring them here, get them vaporized and scanned or whatever and transfer their memories into a strong young body?"

Shaun recoiled slightly at that - it wasn't just the idea of the Isu doing that, but the idea of the _Templars_ doing that that disgusted him. Because they would - they would extend their own lives over and over, and use this power to amass money and power and never, ever hand it over. The world that they would build, stagnant and placid, horrified him all over again.

"I know, I know. I know that Juno wanted this to build herself a body, but she couldn't build an Isu one there - there wasn't the room, though of course I don't know if the thing was capable of building everything that an Isu is or has. But things like, like my Eagle Vision, it still works. So whatever percentage of my DNA contains Isu genes, that part worked. Maybe she wanted to build the most Isu-saturated human body she could..." he trailed off, then shook his head. "Anyways, the process was done, and I checked it out and it was me - my body - in the machine. Just a blank slate, like you were worried about. I know I said I wouldn't make one, but _I didn’t_ , and it was just there. I... I had to try. I'm sorry if that disappoints you, but I didn't, I don't..." He trailed off with a sigh, and looked down at his hands.

"I never told you, but existing like that? It was... it wasn't as bad as it could have been, I think, but there were times..." He trailed off, and for the first time he looked lost, and achingly young. "We aren't built for that. How long was I going to live? In that form, conscious, watching time go by? Watching my friends and family die? Constantly running from Juno's specter? And you guys don't understand, every time I felt things, any emotion, there was always the echo of a reaction from a body I no longer had. I never got used to it. I never stopped feeling... alien from myself. So I _had_ to try!"

He looked so torn, and Shaun tried very hard not to feel like an arse. Desmond's spirits had almost always seemed high; it would be very easy to hide something like this from them - and it had been, apparently. Every time Shaun had noticed something like that, Desmond had no doubt _felt_ it.

Rebecca reached out and took one of Desmond's hands, though. "I'm sorry, Des," she said. "I'm sorry you had to go through that alone. I think I get why you did, but... we're here for you, you know that?"

Desmond glanced up at him, and Shaun nodded awkwardly. Desmond gave him a half-grin at that, like he'd expected Shaun to be awkward when it came to heartfelt reassurances, but Shaun refused to simply accept that at face value, given what Desmond had just shared.

"I know. It's just, that's not something you could change for me. I didn't want it to burden you."

"Burden us next time," Shaun blurted out, and ignored Rebecca's amused smirk at his blunt awkwardness. "That's what friends do, right? Maybe we can't _fix_ it, but we can at least share the burden. We want to."

Desmond laughed softly at that, and oh, that was Desmond's laugh, finally in the flesh, and Shaun felt himself swallow at that. It was Desmond, he knew that, but... there was still one concern.

"We believe you," he said. "We get it, but I want you to understand - our concern isn't just for _you_ , but for the Desmond we've known this whole time. Is there any chance that you are a copy of him, and that he's still trapped in that computer?"

Desmond looked up at him, eyes wide. "I, no, _no!_ There's nothing like that. The scan of-" he said, then stopped. "Oh, _oh_ , no, he's, that's me, I'm here, in this body. There's nothing in the computer but data." He looked torn for a moment, like he wasn't finished talking, so Shaun kept his silence to give Desmond time to think, and when he glanced over at Rebecca, it was clear she was doing the same.

Desmond took a deep breath, and nodded. "So you were... close, I think. There could have been two Desmonds. Me, the, the ghost, and the body. But the body wasn't alive really, not yet. And the scan was just an image, it wasn't active. It wasn't alive, either. Only the two combined would be alive, if that makes sense."

Shaun nodded. "So, there's no version of Desmond we're leaving alone in that building?"

Desmond shook his head. "No, I swear. I wouldn't do that to you. I knew that this might not work, but I was pretty confident that if I couldn't get in there, _here_ , that the body would not live. It wasn't like, viable. If you took it out of the machine when it was completed without activating it, it would just be a corpse, basically."

Rebecca looked at him, and Shaun gave her a small nod. It made sense, and something Desmond had said earlier gave an answer that would give him all the proof he needed.

"So tell me something that happened after we pulled you from the Temple. Something that the Desmond who died there wouldn't know. Something that Juno couldn't know."

Desmond looked at him, eyes wide. "I... uh, hmm," he murmured, then frowned. "Being honest, I'd probably have to pick something from after I encountered her in the, the networks, I guess. When I ran from her and was gone for three days. I don't know if she can read minds or could pick up anything from me like that. But, she knew about that event anyway, so I couldn't use that," he murmured. "I mean, I could tell you about a conversation I had with my mom or my dad, but you'd have to wait to check on that. But I do remember everything since the Temple. You guys coming in, trying to communicate with the stupid apple hologram, the, the cases you made, and the talks I had with each of you about what it means to be an Assassin and the choices we have to make as a result. I remember finding my body and then you guys finding out I hid that from you." He laughed a little, but it was almost sad. "This is so much like before. I can't prove that I am who I say I am. All I have are memories and we don't have any Animus-es here that can show you that."

Rebecca laughed. "There are some similarities," she said. "Mostly, we just don't want to know we're dooming a friend to die in that place."

Desmond nodded. "I get that. I _definitely_ appreciate that. But, there's nothing left in there of, well, me - no copies or anything. I promise."

Shaun knew this was more than good enough for him - the constant need to question who or what makes a person themselves was exhausting, bordering on nauseating, and so much of it had to be taken on faith anyway. No question that this _was_ Desmond, and they had no way to verify whether anything of their friend remained in that facility anyway.

Desmond wouldn't have been confined in the Cradle anyway - he'd been able to leave and communicate, and the fact that Shaun hadn't received a single text or update since Desmond appeared in the flesh was all the confirmation Shaun really needed.

They were able to keep an eye on newsfeeds and a few Templar-only information channels they could monitor, but nothing about Juno or anything relative to their current location.

Time in the vehicle had little meaning, really - it was dark more than it wasn't, so time was kept on their devices and food was all things that could be eaten cold. Even with an extra mouth, they had more than enough since they'd packed enough for two people to eat for more than a week.

After two days, though, everyone was tense, and Shaun hated it. He couldn't help his doubts; did Desmond set it correctly, were the mechanisms to destroy the facility still functional like everything else?

But, like most things in life, when the destruction occurred, it wasn't as satisfying as hoped. The alarm Shaun kept on his phone went off, and a few moments later there was a loud rumble that seemed to come from all around them before the ground that had covered the Cradle caved in. In seconds, though, a cloud of dirt and ice filled the air and visibility of the area was shot.

He glanced down at his phone again, tabbing between a couple of feeds monitoring the Templar communication channels he'd been assigned to keep an eye on, but as the minutes ticked away, no mention of the explosion at all. He glanced over at Rebecca, whose shoulder Desmond was peering over. As if sensing his gaze, she glanced up, then shook her head.

"Nothing," she murmured.

Shaun frowned. It was _possible_ that the Templars didn't have agents in the area at all, perhaps even likely given how remote even the town they'd rented the vehicles from was, but Shaun hadn't survived this long by relying on possibilities and likelies.

"None over here, either," he said, sighing, and glancing out the window again even though there was nothing that could be seen. There was no wind today, either, apparently; even as some dust settled on their vehicle, it was simply drifting downward. "Gives me some comfort we won't see company as we wait for the dust to settle to confirm it's really gone."

Desmond sighed. "How long could that take?"

Shaun frowned. "I... don't actually know," he said, and wished he dared open a search on his phone to find out. "I suppose we'll have to wait a few hours and see. We certainly didn't bring protective equipment to handle this," he grumbled, gesturing to the mess outside.

"A few hours? Somehow, it feels like they'll take forever," Desmond whined, and Rebecca laughed.

"You're probably right," she admitted. "With this level of visibility, I guess 'I Spy' is out!"

Desmond laughed, and Shaun leaned back against his seat with his eyes closed for a moment, to enjoy this weird sort of peace they had in this little bubble they'd lived in the last couple of days.

After all, there was no way to know what the future would bring with it; moments like this were rare enough, and Desmond being back in a body now brought a lot of uncertainty with it.

Best to just enjoy the quiet while they had it.

~

Their hotel wasn't the best, but at the very least had plenty of hot water, which Desmond had clearly appreciated, since after he was done, Shaun had only been able to get a lukewarm shower himself.

When he finished, he found his friends lounging on one of the beds, laughing while they huddled over his laptop. Desmond was only wearing a pair of his pants, and Shaun allowed himself only a moment to acknowledge the view before he cleared his throat.

"Thank you for leaving just enough water to ensure my shower wasn't literally freezing," Shaun murmured, and at least Desmond had the grace to look a little guilty.

"Sorry," he offered, "it's just... I mean, I was cold, but... _warm showers_ , man, I'd forgotten how good they could feel."

Shaun let himself feel bad for a moment, then shook his finger disapprovingly at Desmond. "Don't let it happen again. Becca, I'm sorry, you'll have to wait unless you'd like an experience closer to ice swimming."

She laughed, then waved her hand vaguely at him. "No worries. I'm working on saving as much of this to our cloud as possible. There's some good shit here Shaun, and I might let you have the shower again before I do; you're gonna shit yourself when you see all this."

Shaun's intense curiosity warred with his desire to be contrary, but curiosity won; it always did. "Unlikely," he muttered at her, holding his hand out for the laptop.

Rebecca laughed and rose from the bed, leaving the space in front of the laptop open, right next to Desmond.

He didn't really want to contemplate all the ways that could go wrong, laying on a bed far too small to avoid being pressed against Desmond, so he grumbled aloud and scooped the laptop off the bed, away from a protesting Desmond, and set it on the only table in the room. "Honestly, we have plugs, the least you could have done is plugged it in," he muttered.

It was mostly a production when he grabbed the laptop cable and plugged it in, but the good news was, this prevented full body contact with Desmond, since he had to sit in his own chair. He knew he'd have to confront things later, but... For now, it was best to just get through the evening. He'd worry about anything else tomorrow.

So what if he'd been saying this for a few days already? One more wouldn't hurt.

Desmond was still close, though, but thankfully, there was the distraction of finally being able to look at all the files Desmond had managed to save from the Cradle.

Rebecca was at least half-right; pants-shitting was off the table, but the laptop's hard drive was completely full. The files weren't translated, though, but now he realised why Desmond was so close - he somehow knew what the files were, even though the system couldn't label files and folders in the Isu fonts.

"How do you know all this?" he asked, and Desmond grinned.

"I put it there," he said, with a shrug. "I might forget some as time goes by, but who knows? That's why we were renaming the folders," he said, and sure enough, Shaun scrolled up and some of the folders had been renamed.

"That's... A really good idea," he said, nodding. "Well, let's get started, then, I suppose. I can't wait until we're back with my real hardware," he said.

Desmond ducked his head and laughed a little, and Shaun turned towards him. "What?"

"It wasn't everything," Desmond said. "There was... There was more, so much more, I just didn't have room for it. I can recall it now, but what if I can't?"

Shaun just stared at him a moment, and sighed. "Desmond, you've done enough, you've done more than enough! If you can't recall it later, you can't, and that's fine. We've already got more than we ever had before, and, and..." he trailed off, and looked back to the laptop, back to his hands resting on the keys.

"Even if you'd brought nothing with you, I'm glad you're with us. I'd be glad if you were still floating about and we came out with nothing but the knowledge that the Cradle couldn't ever be used by Templars," he said.

He didn't look over at Desmond, but he could _feel_ the man's gaze on his face, so he continued.

"Honestly, I hadn't wanted to bring it up yet, but since we're talking about it, what do you want to do from here?"

"What do you mean?"

Rebecca wandered back over to the pair, sliding her phone in her pocket. "I've ordered some food. It should be here in twenty minutes."

Shaun nodded at her once in acknowledgement, then gestured for her to sit in the remaining chair.

"I mean, what do you want to do from here? You have a new lease on life, Desmond, quite literally, and you can do anything." He couldn't look at Desmond, but Rebecca was sitting in front of him, and she raised her brows at him. He didn't bother responding to the unspoken question.

"I'm not really sure what you're getting at, Shaun," Desmond said, and when Shaun allowed himself to look over, the grin was gone, and Desmond's jaw was clenched, a frown on his face like he wasn't sure if he should be mad _yet._

Shaun offered a small smile to try and disarm the tension in the air. "You can literally do anything at this point. I sincerely doubt Abstergo would know you're... In a body again," he said. "And, the Assassins won't know if we don't tell them. You can go anywhere, be anyone. Of _course_ you can come back with us, and rejoin the Assassins if you want to. I just wanted you to know it's not your only option."

"He's right," Rebecca chimed in. "We've got some resources, we could set you up wherever you want, you know..."

Desmond's frown grew, though. "What? Are you... Do you _want_ me to leave the Assassins? What the hell?"

Shaun shook his head. "No! I mean, no, not... I just... Desmond. You've done _enough_ , you don't have to prove yourself to us or anyone. You... You died for everyone, you know? I just meant, that if, if you wanted to live a normal life, you can. We wouldn't blame you, and we would do everything we can to make it happen." He'd looked away from Desmond again, because it was hard to say these things. He didn't want Desmond to leave them, but he didn't want Desmond to die again even more than that.

Desmond was silent for a few moments, and when Shaun glanced at him again, his gaze was unfocused. "No, I really couldn't," he said quietly. "I can't not know what I know. And since I _do_ know it, I can't ignore it. I don't want to. I'm in this, now, for whatever or however many lives I have left," he said, lips quirked in a lopsided smile.

Rebecca laughed. "I knew you'd say that," she said, and Shaun rolled his eyes.

"You did not," he muttered. Honestly, they should have known Desmond's martyr complex was too ingrained to drop now.

Desmond's smile turned to a full-on grin. "Were you guys just testing me?" he asked.

Shaun paused. It wasn't true, not really, but it would be easier to say yes than to double down on everything he'd just let out. But instead, he took a deep breath, and shook his head, because Desmond deserved the truth, at least.

"No," he said. "I'm sure we both had a feeling this would be your answer, but... Of all of us, you've undergone things we can't even imagine. We, I... We just wanted you to know. If you did, you've earned it. Whatever you want, we'd do our best to make happen. We had to ask before we reported back in to your father, though, because once he knows, well. Good luck ever getting out of his reach after that," he said, and Desmond laughed.

Even though the words had been both harder and easier to say than he'd imagined, he felt lighter after having said them, and the tense gloom in the air had lifted.

"We'll call him tomorrow, after some rest," Rebecca said. "And after _I_ have had a chance to shower. Now, clear off the table, food will be here any moment," she said.

Shaun glanced over to Desmond. It was still startling, to see him as young as he was, no scar, no tattoo. But his eyes were the same, his smile was the same. Shaun had no doubt left in him that this was their friend, and even though things just got a lot more complicated, he hoped that this time, Desmond would be around for a lot longer.

Long enough, he hoped, for Shaun to figure out what he was going to do.


	27. Chapter 27

Desmond couldn't stop worrying at his lip, right where his scar was. His new body was incredible - a miracle, he knew - but the lack of his scar bothered him more than he would have ever guessed. Every time he smiled, it didn't pull like it used to, and, well, Desmond was never really aware of how much he smiled before this. 

Shaun and Rebecca were both sleeping on their beds, but Desmond wasn't tired yet. He hadn't slept as much as they had the entire time he was 'back', actually, but that didn't bother him as much.

Since he was up, he was at the laptop, working more on arranging files. Shaun had been a little tense earlier, when they'd been working on it together, but he'd appeared to have no problem leaving Desmond in possession of his laptop, so Desmond wasn't sure what his issue had been.

Desmond had had access to every file on the system before, though, basically all at once. He sighed a little as he double tapped on the trackpad to highlight a folder name to replace.

It would be so much easier if he could just... _do_ it. Like he had before.

He could see it clearly, the folders renaming with only a thought, gibberish symbols translated into English, and even though the files were resorted through the renaming, he wouldn't lose track. He knew where they all were, even if they appeared to move on the screen.

It was only when Desmond went to move his hands back to the keyboard that he realized the vision he was seeing wasn't only in his mind. The folders _were_ being renamed as quickly as his mind could focus on each to translate it and re-slotting into alphabetical order as soon as the new name was set, though it had stopped the moment he realized.

He hadn’t _remembered_ where the files were at all, and suddenly it seemed ridiculous that he'd thought that; his memory hadn't ever been _that_ good.

No, he knew where they were because he was still 'aware' of them, could still feel them. He could feel the entire device, he realized, an awareness he hadn't actually realized, because it had been his world for so long now that he hadn't even realized he still felt it when he shouldn't have.

He could feel their phones, too, and the empty cavern of his former shell. He could feel the wireless network their hotel provided.

For a moment, he just sat there, heart racing. Very, _very_ aware of his heart racing.

He looked over at his friends' sleeping forms, knew there was no way he was going to sleep now.

_Oh_ , he thought, _Oh shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE! I added Chapter 27 today because it was so short. Thank you all for sticking around, I sure hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
